


Shattered scales and Broken wings

by Mousekins



Category: Mother 1 | EarthBound Zero | EarthBound Beginnings, Mother 2: Gyiyg no Gyakushuu | EarthBound, Mother 3
Genre: Character Death, Electrocution, Empath Abuse, Gets worse before it gets better, M/M, Mentions of asphyxiation, Most people are half-dragons in this, Porky is mentioned at some point- Fassad too, Slow Burn, Violence not until later but there is a little bit of torture, animal abuse if you count hybrids as animals, dragon!AU, generally not a great time until later on, not all bad- there's fluff in there somewhere, removing the scales of still-conscious dragon boys, shock collars are not cool, tags will update as chapters come along
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 02:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18421239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mousekins/pseuds/Mousekins
Summary: Humans are dangerous. Ness, as a dragon, had it drilled into his head from when he were a baby up until now.It's only when he's stolen away from his quiet and supposedly secluded home that he truly realises the extent of their vileness.





	1. Swept away

**Author's Note:**

> There's gonna be some upsetting stuff in this fic, so I'm going to apologise first off for the fact there will be swearing, de-scaling, implied violence, /actual/ violence, pain, improper use of empathy links and otherwise unpleasant things.
> 
> There will be fluffy bits at some point though, I can't expect the sadness to go on forever. With that, please enjoy!
> 
> For clarification: Lucas talks in italics, I've tried to make it obvious where he's speaking. Claus speaks in bold. If it's too difficult to follow let me know and I'll add something else there to make it more obvious c:

Ness hadn’t been in the world for very long when he had met another of his kin. Frost in comparison to his warmth, smooth scaled and tinted light blues and yellows to contrast his rocky exterior and electric blues and purples. He breathed clouds of steam, and they were both very, very young. He recalls the other having a twin brother and how he had crouched in front of his twin, flaring up his back and narrowing emerald eyes to warn him to not get any closer.  
  
He hadn’t meant either of them harm, but he’d been lead to believe that his uncontrollable warmth had made the icy twins weirdly ill. Ness was a lost hybrid in a world of frost, he’d been sick for the better part of his life, slightly chubby from the need to keep _warm_ amidst all of the _cold_ . Admittedly, a friend would have been nice, but aside from his family he really had nobody else. Tracy was too young to properly leave the nest, his mother was too protective to let him wander too far-- _what if you get so ill you can’t return home? It’s too cold to leave just yet, don’t wander--_ so he sighs.  
  
He’s stuck here until spring rolls around and he can meet that boy with the turquoise eyes and the smooth scales again. It was too cold for him to really survive outside in any other condition, and summer was too hot for the twins.  
  
Of all the dragons within the village he didn’t want to betray his own mother, she knew best after all and according to her, wandering too far outside of the village would earn him being captured. “Humans are greedy,” she’d tell him, stern voiced and soft-eyed, “so don’t wander so far you’ll get seen. A young boy like you would be easy to snatch right up.”

Hybrids are wanted creatures. His mother had warned him too many times of the Humans that sought their scales, their wings, and their claws. He’d shivered at the notion that anyone would want their wings. Scales and claws were easy enough to regenerate, a little bit of licking from any dragon with green accents would heal them right over, and encourage their growth back. Wings on the other claw... They were far harder to regenerate. Wings were thicker and took a long time and a lot more effort, one would have to lay there for potential weeks for the healing properties of the saliva to restore enough cells.

No dragon wanted to lose their wings; It was an immediate death sentence.

It had been an average spring solstice. Their quaint village had all gathered around the sigil in the center of the square, it’s a smooth ovaline rock with intricate patterns carved into the surface. They held all of their celebrations and festivities here, it was a quiet moment to reflect on the events between the seasons, to celebrate those they had met and mourn for those they had lost. Spring dictated the moving on of the afterlife and the birth of new life, the cycle, and new beginnings. They would stand there united in silence until the sun rose to its current peak in the sky.

It’s not long before Ness notices that the frost twins had come out, and it occurs to Ness just why the turquoise-eyed one was always so sickly. His powers leaked from him freely like he had no real control over them. Maybe it was due to the sun being uncharacteristically warmer today. Ness notes that the emerald-eyed brother had tucked a wing around the other one in an attempt to keep the cold around. Instinctively he does the same, his wing reaches out to wrap around Tracy, and though she squeaks in surprise she welcomes the warmth.

Ness doesn’t understand why he hadn’t done this before. It was comforting to know his sister was there under his wing, and keeping her warm was just a bonus. His mother smiles at him fondly, seeing through him entirely but appreciating his brotherly instincts.

When hybrids are born, they look like totally normal children aside from the oddly slitted pupils and patches of scales. As they grow older more of their dragon shows through, wings sprout in early teens and Ness flinches, remembering his own. Tracy would have to go through her own sprouting in a couple of years, too. It’s a painful process and many of the exercises they do as children is to strengthen the muscles in their chest, apparently it’s meant to help with moving the wings once they sprout. Somewhere along the line their magic allows them to shapeshift entirely between a dragon and a normal human.

It gave rise to the rule that only adults were allowed to leave their village. The children and teens lacked enough of the magic in their bodies to allow for such excessive transformations, and he couldn’t argue with that. He couldn’t exactly make himself look like a normal human and any supplies the village had were often brought back from careful traders. He wanted to explore the outside world but even he wasn’t suicidal enough to wander out to where the humans may be. Not yet, anyway. Ness is proud of his scales, their shine was enough to make the stars jealous and it was the only real thing he loved about himself. He wasn’t about to let some greedy human have them without a fight.  
  
His purple eyes wander to the frost twins once more, his sister nudging into him as the spring ceremony comes to a close- their unified silence bringing them closer as a village. Soft trickles of empathy around his group tighten in his chest and tickle his throat, warming his stomach and causing a soft smile to grace his features. He notices a moment later that the turquoise-eyed twin was smiling back at him, weak and weary but positively there.

His empathy connection flickers and he coughs as a weak feeling of joy crosses over the thread. A feeling akin to a breeze brushes against his mind as the little trickles of psychic power meet his own.

 _You have a nice smile_ . It says.

The connection strengthens and warms his torso, bubbling over with the feelings of content and he sneezes, the tickling feeling rising from his throat to his nose. The voice in his head had surprised him- there’s an icy aftertone to the warmth in his chest, an indication it was coming from the dragon boy curled up under his brother’s wing. A spike of anxiety hits him like a ton of bricks, his sister looks up at him in concern as he flinches again.

The emerald-eyed one’s emotions had joined the fray, it seemed. Ness puts a soft-lock on the emotional stream for a moment, too much would cause his own to go haywire, and the last thing he needed was to go into a coughing fit and to suffocate himself in front of his sister.  
  
 _I’m Lucas._

 __  
Lucas, hm? That’s a nice name. It’s not uncommon for a hybrid to have some form of telepathy, but this felt like he was murmuring directly into his ear. A part of Ness jumps for joy when he realises that with Lucas’ strong telepathy, it meant they could talk pretty much anywhere, and that his brother probably won’t fry him alive. On the downside, telepathy that strong meant it had been practiced a lot, and given how weak Lucas was it meant he couldn’t speak.  
  


Ness tries to open the connection to Lucas again, to tell him his own name and maybe get to know him. A soft laugh trickles into his mind.  
  


 _I already know_ , Ness. _It’s nice to meet you properly, at last._  
  


It’s nice to meet you, too, Lucas. Ness never did quite catch their names when they were younger, before their wings had sprouted and their scales were still soft. The other brother, _Claus_ , Lucas helpfully supplies through his mind, had been a lot more feisty when they were all kids.  
  


**I can hear you two, you know.  
  
**

Ness stiffens. Emerald eyes lock with his purple, a soft scowl apparent on Claus’ face before his own mother is tugging him and his sister back to their nest. Lucas murmurs a farewell to him, though he doesn’t hear it quite so clearly in his head, he can feel the gentle stream of sadness worm its way into his lungs. Even with a soft-locked empath stream, he can feel it along with relief, courtesy of Claus.  
  


Over the course of the next few days he had discovered that Lucas was fond of flowers- he couldn’t touch them any more though, his frost could kill some of them. He liked sunflowers the best, they reminded him of the warmth of the summer sun, and Summer was his favourite time of year. He thrived far better in winter but the heat of the sun on his skin was far too nice to pass up, even if it made him drowsy and caused him to faint sometimes.  
  


He learned that Claus could happily interject mid-conversation and surprise the pair of them, soft eeps escaping them and peaks forming in the link between them, and he learned how nice Lucas’ voice truly was. Sometimes he’d zone out entirely just listening to Lucas talking in his mind, rattling on about how boring it was to stay inside their nest, the walls were too tight and his wings constantly felt cramped. He couldn’t fly properly because of how weak he was and how he wishes he could control his powers better.  
  


According to Claus, Lucas got a little excited about him responding one day and froze the floor, which Lucas had then proceeded to slip on. Lucas had squealed incredulously at the fact his brother had even told him, and though they laughed, they never meant Lucas any genuine harm by it.  
  


Claus was a lot less intimidating than he’d originally thought, too. Their conversations were usually short and curt, but Claus had a way of saying what he meant without the filler. Lucas on the other hand would go into more detail about scenarios, like he was constantly telling elaborate stories just for him. He flushes in embarrassment as he remembers falling asleep mid-way through a conversation. Claus couldn’t blame him for it because Lucas’ voice is extremely soothing- a fact that Lucas would fluster over if told about.  
  


_Hey, Ness, you wanna come over for a bit?_   
  


Lucas’ voice sounds a little more energetic than normal, with the sun setting and the evening chill setting in, it’s no wonder he sounds so excited. Apparently Lucas was a night-owl, and enough of one where he’d sleep in until the sun was setting if Claus didn’t drag him out of bed. Ness agrees to come around though- even though he’d definitely get in trouble for it later.  
  


So he sneaks out of the home they had made for themselves, partially buried under a rocky alcove and further up the hillside to where the twins dwelled. It was colder further upwards but Ness doesn’t mind, especially not when a pair of turquoise eyes glows back at him in the dark. The happiness radiating from the figure only seems to grow as Ness runs his way over to him, and then pauses.  
  


Lucas was outside. The ground under him was frosty and Ness is scared that if he gets too close, maybe he’ll make Lucas ill again. He feels a little tug at the forefront of his mind as Lucas draws his attention back to him, a smile on his face that looks awfully playful for somebody’s who’s been ill since he was born.  
  


 _Temperature isn’t the reason for my illness._ He confesses, telepathy making his shoulders relax as Ness inches a little closer. The grass crunches under his feet. _It’s the lack of control I have over my power._ Ah. The continuous leak of cold must be extremely taxing. Ness can’t relate to the extent that he wishes he could, but his inability to have full control over his Empath powers is enough.  
  


Lucas laughs, low and warm despite the cold air around them. He’s not talking and a flick of his hand back towards his home gives Ness a pretty good idea as to why. So they sit there in the silence of the night, the moon watching over them and the breeze rattling the grass around them. There’s a comfortable warmth between them as they sit in each other’s company, no words really needed to be said- telepathically or otherwise- and Lucas was more than happy to connect constellations as Ness watched.  
  


Ness hasn’t truly known the other for very long, but if anything were to happen to him, he’s fairly certain he’d grill somebody alive for the trouble. Ness notes that Lucas has sharp teeth, like his brother. His eyes seem to shimmer no matter what light happened to drape over him, his scales would reflect little bits of blue light, and his hair drapes a little over his face until his hand cradles through it to push it back. His wings are always tucked neatly behind his back, and Ness can’t stop the little smile tugging on his lips as Lucas grins at him.  
  


He doesn’t quite know just when the warmer feelings had come for him, and he can’t be sure they’re his own just yet, either. Empathy had a weird way of making him too attuned to other’s emotions and screwing with his perception of his own.  
  


As they sit there in the quiet of the night, Ness can’t think of anything else he’d much rather be doing. Until he’s waving his quiet goodbyes and sneaking back into his home.

 

 

It’s barely 6am when he hears the obviously annoyed voice of Lucas’ twin rattling between his ears.

**I will actually kill you.**

_Claus it’s fine reall--_

Since then he’d been hearing the twins argue amongst themselves in his head for the better part of the day. Their little midnight rendezvous hadn’t gone unnoticed by the ironically _fiery_ ice twin, and by the sound of his telepathy and the stabbing feelings in his chest. He was _furious_ .  
  


 **Keeping him outside for that long, what were you thinking, Ness!?** He’s thinking of the best way to combat this headache he’s getting. He’s already been grounded by his Mom, there was no reason for Claus to get angry at him too. God, his Mom had been livid. He’d never seen her flare up like that before, he’s also pretty sure he’s never ran so fast to his room in his entire life. _Claus really, I’m fine, let Ness sleep._ He hears the softer-voiced Lucas chime in.  
  


Claus wasn’t having any of it. Apparently the older twin was out for revenge, and the only way his need for death would be satisfied is if it were Ness’ blood on his claws. Ness would normally be scrambling for any reason to get Claus off his back, but he wasn’t about to bus Lucas and his head is throbbing too hard for him to think right. Apparently using telepathy to hear somebody yelling from inside your head would make your brain hurt, whoever would’ve thought?  
  


Still, he guesses he can’t be too angry at Claus for his yelling. Lucas is ill, and he knows for a fact that if Tracy was sick and somebody kept her outside and away from proper rest, he’d be mad too. So he lets Claus yell at him for potentially putting Lucas in danger, even as Lucas insists that he was never in danger in the first place, and the twin’s yelling soon dies down to nothing but Lucas’ gentle sighs and Claus’ groans of disapproval. The link snaps off suddenly and Ness hears the gentle beginnings of a soft lullaby within the corners of his mind.  
  


Ness finds himself finally able to sleep, though not through his own participation. It had come too swift, his body relaxed suddenly, and the last thing he recalls in his conscious mind is an unfamiliar name pricking at the forefront of his brain.

 

He awakens to the sound of melodious singing and the soft clanging of metal around him. It was noisy and cold and the shock doesn’t seem to settle in until he spies Lucas, wings wrapped around himself and curled into a ball. Soft whimpers bubble from his chest and as Ness’ eyes adjust to the lighting, he notices he’s definitely not at home.  
  


The shock hits him like a freight train.  
  


He clambers over to Lucas, his minds link prodding at the boy, alerting him of his consciousness and within moments Lucas’ arms are clinging around his chest and he’s sobbing into him. _Claus!_ He yells out, his headache returns. _They took Claus, they took you, they ambushed us with songs and pretend kindness, Ness…_ the voice in his mind calms down. Though Lucas is still shaking in his hold and he can feel his internal temperature fighting against Lucas’ uncontrollable cold. Ness’ connection stirs with regret and sadness and oddly, pity.

 

“Than’ g’dness yer awake.” Both hybrids jump at the sound of a sudden voice. A scraggly boy wiping at the soot on his face with a red cloth tied around his neck, the edges of his mouth seemed conjoined, forming it into three. With his mouth closed a tooth poked from between the healed-over skin, and Ness notices the patterned scales along the boy’s form. _He’s a healer._ Lucas points out, surprise lacing his voice.  
  


“Ninten.” He tips an invisible hat before making his way through the bars and into their cage. They stiffen in response. “I ain’t gon’ hurt’cha, I’m jus’ here t’make sure yer okay.” Ninten’s hands raise and glow a soft green in response to them relaxing a little more. Lucas’ eyes dart up to meet his own, and Ness nods- they can’t be entirely sure that Ninten’s here just to make sure they’re okay. They recognise his voice.  
  


It’s the same one that sang them to sleep. They’re wary as he softly makes their way over to them, kneeling down beside the pair before smiling warmly and placing his hands on Lucas’ forearm. The turquoise-eyed boy in his arms gasps suddenly as Ninten’s tentative figures touch against his skin, his cheeks turn a soft pink and he warms up. There’s a little twinge of surprise in his empathy link and without much warning, a burst of energy fills his chest. Ness winces. “There.” Ninten says, a hint of pride in his voice.  
  


Lucas looks towards the newcomer, gratitude on the tip of his tongue and Ness notes that the incessant chill had suddenly left. Like Ninten had put a lock on his powers, and given the soft smile that Ninten shoots at him, it was apparent he’d done exactly that. It’s then that Lucas, wide-eyed, in the dim light of their cage motions to Ninten’s back. The action had been so sudden and out of place that Ness couldn’t help but worry-- his eyes lock onto the bony appendages.  
  


Wings. Stripped of their leather, leaving only necrotic tissues and half-healed pink flesh in its wake. Ninten tucks them tighter behind his back in obvious discomfort, and they decide to not bring it back up until Ninten wanted to talk. After a moment his hands lightly touch Ness’ forearm and he feels the soft restoration of his powers, revitalised and refreshed, he shines a grin at the newcomer.  
  


“I’m uh, sorry ‘bout what happened,” he murmurs, eyes downcast, “I don’ ‘ave much of a choice in ‘ere.” He shifts to show a collar under his neckerchief, and it goes without saying that a wingless dragon wouldn’t make it far. “Please don’ hold anythin’ I do in ‘ere against me, I don’t wanna do it but I ‘ave t’.” Ness is still on edge despite the healing, his trust isn’t gained so easily from somebody who had actively kidnapped them. Even if he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter, he was still working for bad people.  
  
  
_We should give him a chance, Ness._ Lucas murmurs in his mind, the soft ebbs of anxiety coming from Ninten are genuine, at the very least. He just wants to be cautious is all, Lucas. Don’t blame him for that.

_I won’t.  
_

Thank God.  
  
Ninten finally excuses himself after a brief moment, understanding their need to be left alone to get used to their new cells. He tells them about the facilities in their new home and that if they ever needed him, that they should whistle. A quick one would do but if they were feeling fancy about it they could whistle a song- he likes songs a little better.  
  
“We have no real choice but to wait, huh?” He murmurs into Lucas’ hair once Ninten had left their cage, the boy snuggling into his chest to keep warm. _I suppose so, we could try to break out, but given how Ninten’s going to be watching over us, it’ll be pointless._ Ness frowns at the sudden dread sinking into his stomach, and he sighs. Tomorrow would just be another day, and he can only hope that Claus is alright, too.  


With Ninten around, Ness hopes so.


	2. Scales

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ness is homesick and in pain, and they can only hope escape will be soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> De-scaling is present in this chapter so uh, be mindful of that. Hints at electrocution too.

He hears the sobbing before he feels it. His face is wet and his body is numb with the cold and yet somehow, as though one particularly cruel God found amusement in his anguish, he could feel the pain shooting up his legs. There’s a mumbling of apologies next to him, something clinking into what sounds like a dish, and he recognises the mumbled voice of Ninten. Soothing and sweet and sing-song in a manner that fills his empath link with regret and absolute agony.   


“’m so sorry Ness,” the dragon says, his apologetic nature dripping from his tone. Ness notes through his own tear-filled eyes that Ninten’s also crying. He’s trying his damnedest not to, given by the taught expression despite his eyes obviously watering up. Ninten’s voice shakes as he sings softly, almost like he’s trying to reassure himself as opposed to Ness. The pain jolts up his leg again and he realises a little too late just what Ninten is doing, and before he can stop himself his powers are flaring up.  


He lashes out at Ninten, squirming and biting and trying everything he can to get away, but Ninten only sings louder and with more passion put into it. His voice carries across the room, echoing off the walls, and Ness hates how his body relaxes instinctively at the sounds. The pain gets worse and worse and-  


****__**Snap**  
  


Ness cries out as the singing dies down. His body is paralysed from the singing. He hates this, he hates being conscious and trusting, he hates how he believed Ninten was a friend, and hates how he’d been so easily influenced to fall asleep in the first place. A part of him wants to hate nobody for trying to rescue him, and yet he couldn’t be certain that nobody had attempted to aid him.  


“Ness ‘m--” He growls at Ninten, and the other shuts up rather quickly.   


“Do-n’t give me your fake ap-ologies.” He spits out, practically feeling the acid on his tongue as Ninten’s empathy link vibrates with sadness. It quells out from regret to an emotion he can’t discern, and it worries Ness that he can’t tell what it is. A moment of silence passes before he feels the familiar feeling of a tongue softly lapping at the wound on his leg, the gentle burn of healing and the tingle of healing PSI being used to seal the wound over. Ninten was healing over the scales so they would re-grow, and then what, harvest them again?  


Ninten gives him a saddened look. Eyebrows draw together and peaking upwards, his mouth turned downwards into a small frown, eyes watery but not quite spilling, and after a long breath he turns his fingers green and brushes against his arm. The paralysis lifts as Ninten stands up to walk out of the room, tray in hand and tears quelled by the scraggy fabric around his neck.  


Ness hates himself for letting the other leave.   


The guilt sets in slowly as Ninten’s form vanishes around the corner. He realises that Ninten’s only reason for singing was to stop him from struggling, the damage that would’ve come from chipping at a scale with him writhing-- he loathes to think of it. The longer he’s left alone the more the emotions seep through, the more the guilt throws itself at him, and his empathy links are suddenly empty around him. Lucas isn’t in the near vicinity, he hadn’t been able to detect Claus for days now, and with Ninten gone he’s left with a hole in his chest. His own feelings would soon get the better of him, and Ness hates the fact that he relies so heavily on other’s emotions to regulate his own.   


So the self-loathing begins, and the sadness ebbs away back into the recesses from whence it came.  


He begins to hate himself for lashing out at somebody who held no control over what they were doing. So he diverts more of that anger to the bastards that forced one of his kin to do these awful acts, the ones that harvested his scales and took Ninten’s wings. His heart hurts when he thinks of Ninten’s wings, the healed flesh had hinted at them being a beautiful mix of red and purple. His hatred reignites at the ones that stole them away from their homes and let greed overcome them to the point they would perform such acts of cruelty.  


Fuck, his leg still hurts.  


He leans over to examine the damage done, it’s still shiny with the thick saliva of a healing dragon, and he almost laughs at the irony. They were making a healer do harm, they were forcing a healer to rip the scales off of others with tattered wings and a collar. Ness hates to think of what would happen to Ninten if he disobeyed, and the thin appearance and fuzzy eyes told him that whatever it was, it wasn’t good.   


Despite all of that, Ninten was still hospitable, he still smiled at them and talked to them. He made himself smaller in their presence despite already being so tiny, and he’d heal up any damage and fuss over them when they were hurt. Hell, when they first arrived here, he had helped Lucas contain his powers. When he comes back with Lucas in tow- the latter softly fighting against him and him being unnaturally quiet. The soft smell of burning hits his nose, and he notes that Ninten seemed a little more dazed than usual. Something seems wrong, and Ness feels his gut twisting in pain. Lucas is gently put back into their cage, and Ness grabs him by the arm before he can leave, tugging him in silent plea to come back into the cage.  


Ninten smiles a little but it doesn’t reach his eyes.  


He leaves as quietly as he came and Lucas curls up on himself, his wings extending to cover him like they would somehow block reality from chasing him. Ness crawls closer to the other, extending a wing out and wrapping Lucas under it, much akin to how he recalls Claus doing the same, and Lucas relaxes in the comforting motion. Their link flares back up as Lucas looks at him, red-eyed and distressed.  


_I miss Claus._  


Ness hates to admit that he misses the fiery ginger too. His rage finally dies down as the melancholic chimes of Lucas’ emotions twine around the gap in his chest, and for a moment he feels genuine relief.  _I asked Ninten where he was._ Ness’ eyes flick to Lucas, the blonde is staring at the floor as if his gaze were intense enough to burn a hole through it. _Ninten told me he couldn’t tell me, and when I pressed him to tell me…_ The way Lucas’ voice trails off in his mind doesn’t instill him with much hope.  


“What did they do?” His voice comes out a little shaken, wary of just what had happened. The link suddenly gains a wave of intense energy, like a wind had kicked up inside of him and would tear his ribs from his chest if he wasn’t careful. Lucas’ expression didn’t bode well for his answer either, and Ness is tentative to press. Lucas looks at him, a storm behind his eyes, tears flow freely down his cheeks and his teeth grit together.  


_They electrocuted him._  


Ness feels his blood run cold as he recalls the faint smell of burning from earlier, how Ninten’s pupils were dilated and unfocused, and as another wave of anger pushes to the forefront of his mind, he feels Lucas’ hand against his arm. _It was awful, Ness._ Lucas starts, his hand tightening over his flesh, calming his steadily-boiling anger with a single motion. _He’d pushed me away before it had happened, he told me he couldn’t discuss Claus. His voice was so monotone, like his personality had been drained with the flick of a switch._ Lucas’ eyes shimmer with worry, and Ness feels their empathy link stirr.   


He hates how they have to live in uncertainty like this. Ness hates a lot of things right now, but while they’re here he can only make the best of it. “We gotta help him.” His tone is even; it’s not a suggestion. A soft hum within his mind let’s him know that Lucas is on board with whatever they eventually decide to do. Their empathy link evens out as their emotions clash in the middle, the storm tiding away in favour for the even ebbs of calm melancholy and gentle peace.   


They sit in silence for a while, their hands slowly connecting together like they had before, when the stars were watching over them and the cold wind of the night had kept them company. The twangs of pain between their empathy link ground them back into reality, the area their scales had been removed throb between them, and Ness’ chest clenches with the ever-present feeling of anxiety and uncertainty. A soft squeeze of his hand relieves a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding.  


_It going to be okay, Ness._ Lucas reassures him, his grip on his hand tightening. _We’re going to find Claus, we’re all going to escape, Ninten won’t have to deal with being tortured any more and…_ A pause. Their eyes lock, hopeful and trusting. _We’re going to be fine._  


They’d been left alone for quite some time after that, and Ness finds himself missing their slurring companion. Their wings tuck back behind themselves, the closeness of their bodies being more than enough contact for the pair of them, at least for the moment.  


Ness hadn’t realised just how badly he missed his sister until Lucas had started to talk about his adventures with Claus to fill the silence. How they used to play fight all the time, their mother scolding them for it, and the fact that he’d inherited the leaky powers off of her. Their father was loving and kind when she was alive, and he’d gone to look for a cure, but by the time he had returned it was too late for them to do anything. He recalls his father being angry that none of them had been born healers, and the only reason they had arrived in their little village was because of the few healers there. They hadn’t been able to do much for her other than give her a quiet, peaceful death. It had amazed Lucas when Ninten was somehow able to stop the flow of his ice from leaking, and Ness has half an idea to ask the scraggly boy how he’d done it. Ninten had inadvertently saved Lucas’ life, and the turquoise eyed boy was more than grateful for it.  


Lucas recalls how panicked his father had been when he’d started to leak his powers out, too weak to do anything, and it was the reason why Claus was always so protective.   


In return he tells Lucas his own family stories. His homesickness was kicking in with being away from them for so long, and his heart aches for home. He tells Lucas about how he wants to feel his mother’s hugs again, how he misses Tracy pestering him to catch dinner, how he wanted to be there for when her wings sprouted. She’s such a young girl and he’s worried that she’d be lonely without him, she didn’t have that many friends in the village, and just as the pangs of his homesickness seep into his voice, Lucas wraps a wing around him.  


His thoughts drift back to the day they had finally spoken to each other, flicking back to how Claus had wrapped a wing around Lucas for the second time, and how he had mirrored the action around Tracy. He leans into Lucas’ body as the wing tightens around him, providing him some much needed comfort. Granted it wouldn’t be on the same tier that his mother would give him- nothing could beat a mother’s hug- but it was close enough.   


A pang in their empathy link makes them both worried for their respective families, and the lingering thoughts of Claus tickle at his mind. With anxiety embedded in their stomachs, they drift off, hand in hand, into an uneasy sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is going to be from another perspective. I wanna give Claus some love and explain what's happening on his end of this whole thing too.
> 
> Man, this is my first multi-chapter fic in a while. I'm sorry if it seems a little rushed haha, I'm used to ficlets and one-shots c:
> 
> Hope you're enjoying yourselves though c;


	3. Headaches

Claus had been fairly certain that if his headaches before were to be described as splitting then this one was a ravine, centered specifically across his entire head and throbbing along with his deafening heartbeat. Every clank of the bars seemed to make his headache a little more painful, and it’s not long before he’s groaning in agony. His eyes open, the darkness of the cell was forgiving and after a moment the headache begins to cease. It’s still there, throbbing across his skull, but eased off at the darkness.   


Just when he thought the pain was leaving him forever, the soft pattering of footsteps brings it right back. He doesn’t know how long he’d been out for, but the lack of connection to his brother makes his chest tighten and his stomach perform flips. He’s anxious, and he hates being anxious. There’s a lingering feeling of panic in his gut and he hates that he doesn’t know where Lucas is, no amount of prodding around for their link, no amount of yelling in his head was yielding results- not that it would work great with this splitting headache anyway.  


So he sighs and leans against the cold wall of his new ‘home’ as the door to his cage opens and a scraggly boy with rough black hair and soot on his skin appears before him. There’s a soft smile on his face that Claus appreciates, and he’d kill somebody before admitting that his snaggletooth was cute. The healed skin of his mouth caused his words to not come out right, so he tended to speak in a lot of short-hand with the occasional lisp.   


Claus had asked about his brother, and he’d told him that he ‘wan’t ‘llowed t’say’. Which is, to say, he wasn’t allowed to tell him. It had taken Claus a measly few moments to understand the boy’s dialect, and he’d introduced himself as Ninten. The moment he’d flashed the collar on his neck, the cogs in Claus’ mind began to turn. So he played to his gut, he became aggressive, accused Ninten’s collar as being some kind of recording or tracking device and would hiss at him whenever he came through. The device around Ninten’s neck was neither of those things, its true intention was hidden, but the prickles of electricity ran through it.   


It made for a good excuse to hate a boy who didn’t deserve to be hated. He didn’t wish to be violent towards the kindly dragon, the only kin he’d seen in days, but for his idea to work it had to be done.   


So his voice would raise and he would growl and slash at the other- Ninten eventually stopped coming inside of his cage, and a part of him is glad that Ninten had decided to leave him alone. It gave him more time to think, to devise a plan to get out of this hell hole and find his damn brother and their friend. Ah, right, Ness. He’d almost forgotten about the purple-eyed boy and his steadily growing connection with Lucas. He recalls the anxiety spike he’d felt when he’d sensed their connection forming, when he’d overheard their conversation, and how dumb he’d felt when he realised Ness was hardly a threat.  


It seemed his only real way out was to deal with Ninten first. So he begins his planning, it’s not much. It’s just a couple of steps ahead, he remains his typical animosity towards Ninten and his collar, however he doesn’t lash out as much at him. He need the boy to get closer to him, to want to be near him again, and yet needs him to hate his guts. Ninten’s probably the sweetest guy he’d met, and he can only imagine one of the reasons that’s true is because of the collar on his neck. It’s well hidden under the worn red neckerchief, but it’s easy enough to imagine it’s there.   


His plan doesn’t get very far when he finally meets the asshole that strapped that collar onto Ninten’s neck. He’s too angry to fully comprehend exactly what he says, and as he bites and nips and claws at him, the man orders Ninten to sing. Claus looks at him, and he can see the flash of pure, unadulterated, _terror_ in Ninten’s eyes. His conflicted expression elicits confusion, and the man glowers.  


He’s a tan, pudgy man, with a headpiece he’d never seen before, and a large moustache. His lips turn into a frown as the silence drags on, Ninten flicking his eyes between him and the man, as though deliberating his options. The man pulls out a remote, leans in a little closer, and through his teeth he says one word.  


“ _Sing._ ” It’s more of a warning than an order, and only Claus’ growls fill the silence. Hesitance fills Ninten’s gaze again as his eyes lock with Claus’ and Ninten flinches. There’s a moment longer of silence before he hears a click- the button had been pressed, and what he sees shakes him to his core. Ninten’s scream pierces his ears, his headache returning thricefold as the boy collapses to the floor and shakes. It finally stops and he hears the laboured and shaky breaths of the boy.   


The smell of burning fills his nose, and he almost retches. The man tells him to get back up unless he wants a more ‘motivating’ shock, and Claus feels his rage spill over. He scratches at the cage, his arm lashing through the bars and clawing at the sandy material of the man before him. Of all of the things he had expected the electronic to be, a shock collar was mere insult. So he allows his anger to consume him, lashing out like a feral beast through the cage’s slits. Nothing in his vision but red.  


He feels his arm being grabbed.  


He hears the crunch before he feels it. His arm in the palm of the man’s hand, and with effort Claus can only describe as _very little_ he suddenly feels the pain shooting up the now-mangled appendage. His eyes prickle with tears as he gasps for air, his forearm falling limp as the man lets go of it and smirks at him.   


“That’ll teach you to swipe at me you filthy lizard.” Claus growls between his tears, refusing to let any of them fall as he cradles his utterly shattered forearm close to his chest. The pain is beyond all reason, and Claus had broken bones before- he had broken them but he’d never felt pain to this extent. He smells the after-effect of magic lacing the appendage and realises that the man had used a spell to remove the shock from his system. Claus can’t describe the anger he feels as he snarls at the man from the presumed safety of his cage.  


The shuffling of Ninten as his claws lightly grasp at the bars alerts him of his presence, and as he hoists himself up he spares a glance at Claus’ direction. His eyes are fuzzy and he seems a little distant, even as he looks Claus directly in his eyes. Claus hears the wavering beginning of a gentle melody, the same, soft song he had heard moments before he had been taken to this head-splitting place to begin with.   


He fights against it at first, the wavering in Ninten’s voice lessening the power of the sweet song, but as Ninten begins to snap out of the daze the electric shock had given him, it’s hard for Claus to resist the melody’s lull into his eventual sleep. His last thoughts before his consciousness dips is how much of a joy it would be to feel that man’s blood splattering against him.   


He awakens with a dull pang in his arm and the sight of a teary eyed Ninten, the soft green glow highlighting the reds around his eyes, and the soft sniffling alerting him that he’d definitely been crying for some amount of time. He’s mumbling to himself with some intent, the words muffled more so by the skin over his mouth than his actual mumbling, and Claus notes that he seems too distracted to notice that he’s actually woken up. Normally he’d take the opportunity to slice at Ninten’s face and get him away so he could think, but the tingling up his arm and the relief of the dull ache being numbed prevents him from lashing out.   


Ninten’s wings are tight against his back, his brow is furrowed as he concentrates all of his energy on healing up the wound that is his forearm. As Claus begins to snap out of his daze- the song fading out from his ears to be replaced with soft fizzing and static noises- his hand twitches. The whirr of robotics is clear in his ear and, horrified, he kicks out.   


The scraggly boy grabs his arm and shoots him a look so fierce he freezes up on the spot. Ninten’s usually kind gaze had frozen over, there’s bags under his eyes and Claus finds it wise to ease back into the chair he’d been strapped to, and offers an apologetic yet stubborn look right back at him. The scraggly boy sighs and resumes his work, the PSI mending the flesh of his arm and the flashes of healing removing any potential infection. Ninten’s an adept healer, and Claus will have to thank him later.   


“Th’said tha’ yer bones were t’damaged t’fix,” His voice is slurring with more intensity than Claus was expecting, it takes him a moment to understand that he’s talking about his once-shattered forearm. The bones being so damaged that a healer couldn’t fix them was nigh unheard of, and Claus finds himself scowling at the news, “so they ‘ad me cut th’damn thin’off ‘n’...” Ninten sighs deeply, the magic coming to a halt before he rubs his forehead. “‘N’ tol’ me t’ stick a prosfetic on it.” A prosthetic? So that’s what the metallic thing was.  


Claus moves his fingers again, noticing that his forearm and hand are now made of clean metal, and he shudders at the thought of Ninten being forced to slice his forearm off. He’d been thankfully keeping enough of a mental dictionary to understand what Ninten was saying to him, ‘to’ and ‘the’ generally only became the first syllable ends of words were often cut off, vowels would be removed where he could get away with it, and infuriatingly enough he would mix all of the sounds together. The tiredness of the boy only made the accent worse.  


In such a case, Claus recognises that Ninten was informing him that the man who had grabbed his arm had shattered the bone, and it would take too long to fix it, as such he had to cut it off and give him a prosthetic. He wonders how many hours of sleep the other had to forgo just to heal him back up, and though he feels like a total ass for being so cruel to the tired boy he has to be for this to work. His whole plan would be in ruin if he let his cold exterior slip for even a moment.   


Ninten was showing the soft signs of strain, the tiredness, the glares, the slurring of his speech and the ebbings of anger flaring up around him. He doesn’t know just what kind of strength Ninten has, but the kind nature and thin appearance signalled he wasn’t exactly the strongest dragon he’d have to fight.   


If the man had shattered his forearm with a single squeeze, he loathes to think of just what has happened to Ninten in the past to make him so damn compliant. Before the shock collar was introduced and before Ninten’s wings had been stripped of their leather, he wonders just what Ninten was like- the little sparkles of mischief in his eyes had alluded to a potentially rowdy kid. To be captured and tormented, to grow around steel walls and be used to skin others was a cruel fate to be bestowed, and Claus allows his anger at what could have been to fuel his plan.   


Hell hath no fury like a Dragon scorned.   


The robotic prosthetic had put a slight hitch in his plans, for he would need to get used to moving it and channeling his energy amongst it for his PSI to be effective. The last thing he wanted to do was overload the damn thing trying to defend himself, though a couple of test charges at varying intensities makes him realise there’s a limiter on it. Of course there’s a limiter on it, there’s no way they’d let him use his full charges and potentially break it after it had just been put on.   


“Ninten?” It’s the first he’s spoken to the boy in a long time, and Ninten seems shocked to hear his name. His eyes widen like a deer in hunter’s sight, and with a tenderness Claus didn’t think Ninten was capable of he utters a quiet-   


“Yes?” It almost stops Claus’ heart. It sounded so polite and so broken that he has to swallow down the inherent guilt seeping its way up his throat. It was a total 180 from the ice-cold anger he’d seen earlier. So Claus inhales to steel himself and moves against the straps.  


“When can I get out of this chair? It hurts.” His voice is even as he talks, there’s no malice behind it, and the boy laughs bitterly. He shakes his head and stands up to lean close, his hand on his shoulder and an unreadable expression. Claus can’t tell who the real Ninten is- the soft, sweet boy he had met, or the cold, indignant one currently glowering at him.  


“Aft’ yer lashin’ out at th’ boss o’thi’ place, I’d say ‘e likes yer feist,” Ninten starts, his voice lowering a couple octaves. “I’d be surprised if ‘e didn’ try t’ _repurpose_ yer.” Claus’ heart almost stops beating outright in his chest, his panic settles in a little too quickly for him to mask it. He’s cursing himself for letting his anger consume him, for showing them how strong he could be when he was angry, and after been giving a prosthetic limb there’s nothing stopping them from giving him a collar too and--  


Ninten’s laughing. A joyous and full sound, little squeaks of air as he inhales sharply. Claus’ confusion doesn’t leave his face, his head cocking to the side as Ninten wipes the tears from his eyes- mischief twinkles on his expression and it clicks  


By the Gods did he just..?  


“Take it as revenge for all th’shit y’ve been givin’ me lately.” He says, a hint of humour still in his voice as he quietly undoes the straps. “Ion know what I did t’make y’so angry, but ‘m sorry if it counts fer anythin’.” The fact that Ninten was trying so hard to pronounce his words properly, to make the apology sound more sincere, it actively hurts his heart and Claus wants to tell him. He wants to tell him that it isn’t Ninten he’s angry at, he wants to tell him of his plan, but there’s no way Ninten would understand it.  


That being said, his plan was half-baked at the time, but when had a half-baked plan ever stopped him? Claus rubs the areas where he’d been strapped down, the cool feeling of metal on his skin is uncomfortable at first, but Ninten is patient and lets him get used to moving with it.  


“I don’ want t’ but…” Ninten says suddenly, leading him back to the chair and getting him to sit down, expression apologetic. “I’ll ‘ave t’take you back t’yer room, without y’knowing the way.” Claus nods quietly, his tiredness from the day taking over him as he leans onto the chair and closes his eyes. The last thing he wanted to do after such a heartfelt apology was to make the boy angry, he’d have to be somewhere more familiar than here for his plan to work. It’s not long before the familiar song starts up, the boy’s voice far gentler than it had been before, and Claus finds sleep all too easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if you can actually read what Ninten is saying. I've offered his dialogue around to a few friends and they can tell, but if not, I'll add a translation or make his accent less thick.
> 
> Thanks for reading /o/


	4. Homesickness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ninten reminisces of home and is unfortunate enough to slip into Claus' plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things will get worse, slight fluff near the end of the next chapter, but there won't be a true happy spell for a li'l bit. It's not all bad c:   
> I try to have the next chapter written by the time I post the one before it, but this next chapter is a little difficult for me to write.
> 
> Chapter warnings:  
> Mentions of electrocution, violence, bad memory flashbacks, kidnapping, and a very angry Claus.

Ninten had lived a relatively uncomplicated life before the Pigmasks had taken him from his village, his parents had loved and cherished him as though he were their own son. Being adopted by two humans had lead him to believe all humans were just as well-intentioned as the ones who had raised him. They taught him songs, the art of singing and music, they would soothe him with lullabies and he recalls accidentally putting them to sleep when he had repeated the words back. He had panicked then, he had thought he’d killed them, he had wept buckets until his mother woke up and soothed him.

They had been in debt, heavy, heavy debt, and though he knew his scales would have cleared it immediately, they had told him not to worry about it. It wasn’t his problem, they’d gotten into it and they would get themselves out of it. The Pigmasks were ruthless in their debt collecting ways and had ravaged his home, they had hurt his parental figures and Ninten couldn’t forgive them for that.  
  


So he had attacked them, he recalls slicing at their faces and biting and chewing, and the taste of copper sometimes sparks against his tongue when he remembers. It’s that moment he was taken away as ‘payment’ for their debt, his scales were taken, his wings were slashed, and he was left to lick at his wounds like a dying dog. If that weren’t enough, they’d clamped a collar to his skin, and electrocuted him if he didn’t do everything that they’d say. Everything including descaling other dragons they picked up along the way, and even slicing the wings off of them too. They quickly realised that a de-winged dragon lost the shine in their scales, and Ninten can’t quite remember what his looked like before his wings were taken.  


A fully healthy dragon had the best scales to take, and he could heal them back to full health. He was the crux of their money-making schemes and he knows they only kept him on such tight lock-down because he had trickles of green accenting his matted scales. Healthy dragon scales would shimmer iridescent in sunlight, they were sturdy and nigh impenetrable. One could make armour out of the stuff and they would surely be protected. As such, the scales were highly sought-after.  


He had his wings cut for a couple of reasons, the primary one was because the leather of wings made a pretty penny, the fact it meant he could no longer escape was a happy bonus. They had made sure to cut close enough to bone that the tissue would become necrotic and incapable of being healed unless cut down further, and in his eternal prison, the pink tissues would be enough to make them splash acid on it. It had hurt enough to feel the knife pierce against the tissues, and the leather of their wings isn’t exactly all too thin.   


His wings twitch as the phantom pains sink in, and he exhales shakily as the sun inevitably sets. They were cruel enough to give him a room to himself, a room with a view of the ocean they travelled over- they’d be heading to Onett to sell off the scales, and no doubt he’d be asked to collect more of them before they got there. The ocean is beautiful under the setting sun, the waves looked more like silk than waves, and he sorely wanted to know how the water would feel against his skin.  


Onett wasn’t close to the shore like Summers. He supposes one of the good things about being taken was that he got to see the ocean, and he got to meet lots of nice people on the street. Fassad would show him off to them and wail about how hunters were cruel folk who had taken his wings, and for people to donate against the improper treatment of these ‘beautiful creatures’. He would splay his wing bones on request to earn saddened and pitiful gazes, and a part of him wants to yell out that it was Fassad who had done it to him. He wants to scream that he remembers the knife on his skin and the dull pangs of electrocution coursing through his body.

He’s so exhausted.  


He recalls back to earlier when he had been healing Claus. It had taken up a lot of his reserves to fully heal the prosthetic onto his arm, and he was thankful for the snacks he’d been given to replenish it. They had considered it a blessing he knew no offensive skills, he was a healer first and foremost, and a support secondary. He knew how to put others to sleep and defend himself from being attacked. If anything it honed his skills in reading people, everyone was a potential opponent on this ship and he needed to be on his guard to be attacked at any moment.  


Ninten’s not an idiot, he knows when somebody is in too deep of thought, he knows when a plan is being conceived, and he knows not to tell his superiors that one of them is trying to escape. The last time he’d informed them, as per request, the dragon had their scales torn off, their wings ripped, and he was the one who had to cry and beg her forgiveness as he was forced to let go of her hand.  


He had watched her plummet into the ocean. Bile rises to the back of his throat and he swallows it down with his tears, the smell of copper all too familiar in his nose, the longing to heal the wounds, to bandage the wings he’d been forced to tear off- he didn’t have a choice in the matter, it was that or be burned alive by the shock collar. In hindsight, he wishes he’d just let his own heart stop, but then he’d simply be replaced for another. Another would have to suffer for his foolishness, and he refuses to let that happen again.  


His thoughts flicker back to Ness and Lucas, their scared expressions when they had first met, the wonder in Lucas’ eyes as he soft-locked the reserves of his powers, the sudden curiosity and fear when he’d noticed what was left of his wings, and the polite moving on when he had tucked them tighter behind his back. He recalls Lucas crying softly as he snapped the scales off his skin, the betrayed look in his eyes and the cold, dead, silence of the room aside from the occasional snap and clink of scales. He remembers apologising to him, and Lucas not responding.  


He didn’t like the sound of Lucas’ quiet sobs, he didn’t like the sound of Ness’ barely contained anger, and he hated the monotone in Claus’ voice when he was hurting. He knows they want out of here, but they didn’t know that they were in a stable airship, they didn’t know the structure of the area, and he knows he’d be punished if he so much as said the word ‘sky’. It didn’t help that Lucas was so thin and frail, he looked like he hadn’t flown a day in his life, Ninten couldn’t fly for obvious reasons, and Claus would be off-balance with his newfound limb.   


It would be suicide to try and jump ship so soon, and the metaphorical leash on his neck was tightened twice fold on the surface. There was no real way for them to escape their newfound Hell, and Ninten wishes with all of his heart that he could help them somehow. He shudders to remember that when he wakes up he’ll be tasked to bring the others their breakfast. It wasn’t a big meal, enough to keep them healthy and just fed enough so the scales would shimmer still. He was fed the same meals just to make sure he had the energy to descale and heal, he couldn’t heal if he wasn’t fed, and for that he’s thankful. No doubt they’d put that over his head if he attempted escape, too.   


‘We fed you and clothed you and freed your family of debt and this is how you repay us?’ He laughs to himself, a little disturbed how he can mimic their voices perfectly in his mind. Ninten figures he had a lot to say to the men who forced him to be their slave, and he imagines if he were to ever fully escape, they’d possibly go after whatever living ‘relatives’ he had left.   


His heart speeds up in his chest as he thinks of his home, his true home, where his mother and father were, where his two little sisters were, where the trees would rustle him lullabies and the wind would whistle through the rocky alcoves. He’d long forgotten those melodies that would pull him into sleep, and sometimes he’s sure he hears his mother’s voice in his dreams. His heart goes out to the poor, homesick, Ness.   


Ninten offers one last look at the setting sun before curling up on his bed, it’s nothing much, mostly a blanket on the floor that he’d bundled up and curled up on. He’s had it since he was kidnapped at a mere 13 years old. It had been a decent size for his tiny stature, and now it was a little on the small side, but it was his.   
  


He awakens to the usual bell and stretches out his muscles, wincing as his wings tense outward, the lack of the membrane between them caused him to over-stretch them sometimes. He tucks them behind his back, adjusts his clothes so he’s as presentable as he can be, and pauses on his way to grab the breakfasts. He had apologised to Claus yesterday for upsetting him, and yet there was still a nervous lump in his throat over it. He wants to shake off the feeling that something terrible was going to happen, but his gut instincts were usually a little too on-point for him to ignore.   


A sigh escapes him, he couldn’t avoid the ginger forever, so he resolves to simply take his meal to him last in the hope that maybe by the time the food is delivered the feeling will have settled. He exchanges some pleasantries with Fassad- at most a ‘Hello, sir’ and a couple of ‘yes, sir’s as he’s asked to take the meals to the dragons and chip off more scales, his job yesterday had been abysmal and he expected to see double the amount. His heart sinks into his stomach as he takes the boxes of food directly to Lucas and Ness’ shared cell. Not exactly eager to do his job, but wanting to talk with them before the event actually happened.  


He’s about to greet them both with his usual chipper attitude, however when he looks into the cage, he sees nothing but scratch marks littering the floors and walls. Desperate and panicked. His heart sinks further, and he shakily calls out to them, panic setting into him- they couldn’t have escaped, there was no damage on the bars. Somebody _dragged_ them out before breakfast, and a part of him is angry at whoever did that.  


“Oh, did nobody tell you?” Fassad’s voice peaks up from behind him as he places the boxes into the cage for their inevitable return. “They’ve been taken to the link room, we’re running some tests on them before their morning descaling.” Ninten doesn’t bother to answer him, merely offers him a nod of understanding before he stands up, the sinking in his stomach suddenly making him feel sick. He knows the exact test that they’re running on the pair, and he excuses himself to go and meet with Claus. The pudgy man had purposely withheld the information from him before, and it didn’t surprise Ninten that he had done so, but the only reason Fassad would do that is when he’d noticed a connection forming.  


He wanted him to panic, for his emotions to be heightened. So he hides it.  


Fassad snickers as he leaves, and tells him that he’ll be observing the tests, and to get Claus fed as fast as possible to come and join them. So Ninten fastens his pace in the hopes of spending a little extra time with the fiery boy. He doesn’t want to join their sick torture fantasies, he already wants to go straight back to bed and to forget the day had ever happened.  


He would never admit the relief he feels when he sees Claus alive and healthy, exactly where he was meant to be. Ninten forgets, for just a moment, that the other hated him being inside of his cage, the relief flowing through him dampening his logic as he steps inside and places the food box onto the floor. The apology from yesterday should have cooled the boy down anyway, he had figured- if only he’d realised how utterly wrong he was. Ninten only remembers when a growl sounds out, cold metal gripping his arm painfully as his back is slammed against the wall.  


He gasps for the air to return to his lungs, a coughing fit wracking through his entire body, his lungs burn, his eyes widen.  


“Where is my brother?” Oh, oh no. Claus’ eyes flash when he doesn’t answer immediately, and as Ninten goes to open his mouth to answer, Claus is growling into his face. He flattens himself against the wall, his wings ebbing painfully against his back- Claus definitely broken something there. “They took him somewhere, I could hear him, _I can feel him._ ” His teeth grit and Ninten closes his eyes shut.  


“I can’t--” Ninten barely gets the word out before he feels a hand around his throat, squeezing his airway and causing him to lash back out. His fight or flight kicks in and he growls right back at Claus, teeth bearing through the joint skin of his mouth. The skin splits further as his lips upturn into a snarl, his claws lash out and before he can truly feel it, he senses the faint tinglings of electricity.  


His eyes widen, pupils contracting, his breathing cuts and the true terror sets into his body. It shivers through his skin and paralyses him as he awaits the volts to course through his body. He feels the pain of the collar’s heat against his neck before he smells the faint odor of smoke and singed skin. His vision brightens as air suddenly returns to his lungs, and blackens as he falls to the floor, limp and terrified.  


Claus had mercifully let go of him, and the last thing he feels is a claw wrapping itself around his neck before he passes out.


	5. Hugs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ness awakens in a plain room and is emotionally manipulated for far too long. He finds comfort in a friend he hasn't seen for some time, and there's a lot of love to go around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS:  
> Empath link play, suffocation, light mentions of blood and some fluff at the end of this chapter. Skip the first section if you're really not about seeing Ness getting tormented.

Ness had felt his heart stop beating, it was only for a moment, but the bubble in the rhythm had set his nerves alight. The last thing he remembers before being dragged out of his cage, kicking and screaming, was the tearful eyes of his friend grasping for him through the grip of the men that had held him. He recalls the intense feeling of fear cutting at his lungs and the intrigue in the fat man’s eyes--  
  
He grits his teeth. The amusement in the man’s eyes made his stomach turn awfully. He swallows the feeling back down as he looks around the room he’s contained in. It’s not much to look at, plain walls and door with no window- the lighting is dull for the moment while his eyes adjust, and suddenly the lights get much too bright. He attempts to stand, only to discover his feet are chained to the floor.  
  
The room is so quiet he can hear his own heartbeat thudding in his chest, and with so much chatter around him growing up, it makes the silence all the more deafening. Even with the relative silence of the cells, he still had Lucas’ connection, he still had the soft breathing of the weak boy next to him. Right now his chest just feels empty again, and his own feelings start pooling into the gap faster than he can stop them.  
  
The dread, the guilt, the anger, the sadness, waves of emotions crash into him and cause his body to shake with the intensity at which they come. He collapses further onto the ground, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes as he attempts to balance out his emotions. It’s been so long since he’d had to do this so often, he usually had the help of his mother or his sister to share the burden of how he felt. His emotions were contagious, and he hates how they seep so freely from him.

It’s then that he feels the gentle connection of Lucas waking up, and panic settles into the void in his chest, it squeezes his lungs and tickles his throat. He coughs and attempts to reach out to the boy, to reassure him, to tell him it’s okay. He’s here now, it’s fine, but the more he attempts to get through the more the attempt is blocked off, and he realises a little too late, through violent coughing and gasps for breath, that there’s a barrier between them. It’s stopping their thoughts but not their feelings, they didn’t want them to talk.  
  
The wall separating them had a foul smell of smoke, the same one that reeked from Ninten’s collar, and it causes irrational anger to flow back through him. Let him see Lucas, let him talk to him, and stop this God-awful treatment.  
  
The emotions intensify from the other side of his link, constricting his throat and his chest. He can barely breathe, breaths coming in short and hazy, his vision gains spots and as he’s welcoming the sweet relief of passing out, suddenly he can breathe again. Pride be damned, he allows the tears blurring his vision to finally fall, this pain isn’t his own and he will happily burden it if it stops Lucas from feeling so much by himself.  
  
A selfless Empath is as good as dead. He’d been warned by many of the older dragons in his village, taking in too much emotion with an empathy such as his would eventually kill him, it would widen the hole in his chest and eventually burn him out. The pain would crack at his scales and weaken him as a whole-- but it was for Lucas. It was worth it for Lucas  
  
The other dragon had done so much for him while they had been here, he had held him while he were homesick, he had softly patted his hair to let him sleep, held his hand when he had a nightmare, and overall had helped him bare the burden of being an Empath. The purple in his scales glows as soft waves of sadness crash into him, the purple pulses across his body, chipping off some of the rocky exterior and leaving him mouthing for air.  
  
He can’t breathe, his lungs are constricting and there’s a cough in the back of his throat that’s causing him to choke on whatever air is getting through.  
  
He feels sick to his stomach, he feels his energy expanding outwards and inwards, scorching the walls and the floor, burning the flesh of his ankles as his body heats to an unreasonable degree. His vision spots again as the air is cut from his lungs and all too suddenly--  
  
It stops.  
  
He can breathe again. The air fills his lungs and the hole in his chest returns, the emotions leak out of him and leave him feeling utterly, entirely exhausted. He collapses onto the floor, the cold of the room evening out the blistering heat emanating from his body. His breaths come short, laboured, and he chokes back a sob in favour of simply _breathing_ . Ness remembers nothing as his eyes close over, his scales dimming and his wings drooping onto the floor with a soft _thud._

 

\---

 

Ness awakens to the sound of sobbing, his link opening for a split second and he gasps as the pain hits his chest again- mercifully the link frazzles out as the blonde boy looks at him with wide eyes. Tears pool at the corners in full force as their gazes connect, and a soft, delighted gasp sounds out from the turquoise-irised boy.  
_  
Ness!_ The voice in his head sounds out a little too loudly, and he winces, causing Lucas to shoot him an apologetic look. The boy’s wings cuddle him closer and he threads a clawed hand through his hair, lightly untangling the knots and carefully letting his head loll against his chest, relief apparent upon his face. _Oh Ness,_ Lucas’ voice is softer this time, _I was so worried for you. They told me what they were going to do, they opened our link to overload you like that and…_ His voice trails off and Lucas looks at him with kind eyes.  
  
He allows himself to relax in Lucas’ hold. It had been far too long since he’d been held like this, simply cradled close and warmly. He tries to not think of home as Lucas’ wings give on their hold around him, shielding him from the strange temperatures but remaining should he require the comfort, and he notes that Lucas is holding his hand. Ness feels the trickles of energy running through him, and he shoots Lucas a scolding look as he sits up.  
  
“You’ve only just regained your strength don’t--” Lucas hushes him, and before he can continue to protest, his body slumps back into Lucas. He’s not happy with this arrangement, but he knows Lucas is doing what he can to repay him for tanking the pain for him earlier. He’s mending his psychic bonds, and letting him recharge from the stress. Though it’s not like the blonde had much more energy than he does, they’d need more than their weakened states to repair the damage done, and Ness is all too aware of the gaping hole in his chest. He felt so empty.  
  
“Lucas?” He says after a moment of their mutual silence, their energies melding together through their palms, and Lucas looks at him with those piercing, beautiful eyes of his. He feels his heart stutter in a far different way. “I, uh… thanks.” Ness finishes lamely, his eyes darting off to look at literally anything else in the room. Lucas’ hold felt pretty nice, it’s comfortable and he felt protected, it’s a bonus that he can hear the gentle thud of Lucas’ heart through his chest. His skin is cool against his warmth, it offers a contrast he so sorely needed, and he’s so glad that he’s back in Lucas’ company.  
  
His feelings haven’t quite come back, the overload of his empathy link having drained him of a lot of his emotion, leaving him feeling exhausted and worn. Even the evening out of their powers hadn’t done very much, and Lucas squeezes his hand. _Are you hungry?_ Gah! Lucas, don’t just invade his mind like that. The dragon smiles at him, unlinking their hands to pull a pair of boxes closer. _Ninten dropped by with our breakfast shortly after we were... taken._ An interesting choice of words from the blonde, but Ness doesn’t question it as Lucas hands him the cupcake.  
  
If there’s one thing he appreciated about being locked up here, it was the food. He knows there isn’t a lot, and it wouldn’t be enough to restore him fully, but it would help his powers and even them out a little more than Lucas could assist him with. As he takes a bite, a thought occurs to him.  
  
“Lucas?” He says again, earning an inquisitive head-tilt from the choice mute, “What… What did they do to you?” His voice is quiet as he watches the blonde with worried eyes, and his worry only increases with every bite of the cake followed by a prolonged silence. Lucas finishes the last of his food, his wings tucking behind his back again, and quietly moves his arms to reveal the healing skin coated in thick saliva.  
  
They’d descaled him while he was awake and forced the empath to take the brunt of the pain for him, they’d used him as a painkiller so when they stole the scales, they could take more than normal. He’d be more angry if he weren’t so tired, and just as he’s about to apologise to the other for causing him such grief, Lucas presses a finger to his lips and shakes his head.  
  
_Don’t apologise for their wrongdoings. I was in pain, you wanted to help. Thank you._ Lucas’ voice is soft, yet scolding, and Ness can’t find the energy to argue his case. The blonde had made the statement rather final, so Ness simply thanks him for being so kind in return, and Lucas smiles a little warmer at that. As Ness looks further around the room, he notes that they’re not actually in their cage any more, they’re in a separate room entirely. There’s a blanket curled up in the corner near a window, and his curiosity piques as he notices it- a gateway to the outside world? 

Lucas’ wings wrap around him again, a little tighter this time, and for a second Ness had totally forgotten that Lucas could basically read his mind. The other cocoons him closer, almost protectively, as a soft sigh emits from the corner of the room, his empathy link had frazzled so the noise actively causes him to jump a little.  
  
“Sorry,” Ninten says, his voice sounding strangled and strange. There’s an awful bruise on his neck and Ness’ heart half-skips a beat with concern, Lucas strokes at his back as though to calm him, and Ninten offers a weary smile. “I didn’ mean t’scare ya.” Ninten swallows loudly before he continues. “We don’ ‘ave much time ‘m ‘fraid, me ‘n’ Claus….” his eyes drift to the corner, and Ness’ heart leaps in joy.  
  
Claus was safe (thank the Gods) he’s bloodied, and a little wary, but safe. Ness lacks the energy to ask just who’s blood that is, but given how Claus looks to be in good health, it’s safe to say that it probably isn’t his own.  
  
**Sorry Ness.** Is the only thing Claus says to him, and Ness offers a light smile back at him. There’s no need to apologise Claus, it’s not like you were the one who threw us into this scenario in the first place. The green-eyed dragon doesn’t look at him, his eyes averting further to the floor and Ninten breaks their momentary silence by standing.  
  
“We’ll ‘ave t’catch up elsewhere, they’ll notice ‘e’s gone.” Ninten sounds relatively panicked, and it’s Claus that reaches out to pull him down to fit him under his wing. The scraggly boy curls up, nervous and wary of the sudden shelter, and it occurs to Ness that Ninten’s been isolated from true society for a long time. Ninten doesn’t know that’s a gesture of comfort, his wings had been stripped, and perhaps the dome around him gave him unease. Ness looks at Claus, the green-eyed boy stares back at him for a moment before he diverts his eyes to the small dragon under his wing.  
  
Reluctantly, Claus moves it out of the way, and Ninten visibly relaxes. There’s an air of uncertainty around the pair of dragons, and Ness can’t stop his concern for them both- it was like something awful had happened, and the weight of the room was suddenly suffocating. He splutters as his empathy links slowly open back up, the abuse from earlier flashing through his mind and the sharp pains racking through his system. Lucas’ eyes widen in gentle panic as Ninten rushes forward to forcibly close the links--  
  
He can breathe again. His breaths come through laboured and shaking, though he manages to form a grateful smile to Ninten. He doesn’t know where he learned such a skill and his gratitude stops him from asking, instead, he takes Ninten’s hand in his own-- earning a confused look from the boy-- and squeezes it quietly.  
  
Ninten’s confusion isn’t lost on Lucas, either. He hears the soft whispers of conversation between them, but his telepathy isn’t powerful enough to quite understand what they’re saying without a direct link. Claus’ eyes widen for a moment, and Ness gathers that whatever they’re talking about was bad. Lucas flinches and looks away, and Ninten’s eyes avert to the floor.  
  
**Five years.** Claus sounds out in his mind, **Five years they’ve kept him here. He was not housed by our kin, but by humans.** Ness’s heart fills with sadness as he looks to Ninten, the boy seems unsure of how to act, eyes darting and gnawing his lip with his snaggletooth.  
  
“They may’a been human but they were kind t’me.” Ninten offers, quietly. “They’d’a fought tooth ‘n’ nail ta keep me, but before they could really fight fer me, they’d already restrained ‘em and took me fer payment.” He waves his spare hand before anyone can ask him what that payment was for, and Ness offers another squeeze to his hand.  
  
“So you’ve never been around other dragons?” Ness perks up, and Ninten grins at him, though it looks far more akin to a grimace than a genuine smile.  
  
“Nope, ‘s’why I talk funny. Th’ most interaction I ever gots is watchin’ y’all do yer own thing. But it feels weird t’me.”  
  
“Then,” Ness starts, sitting upright to give Ninten his full attention. Lucas sees it as an opportunity to go and sit by his brother, the blonde had been itching to do so since he’d woken up, and a small smile plays on his lips as he notes the obvious comfort brought about when Claus instinctively puts a wing over him. His heart longs for home, his eyes lock with the odd amber and glittering red’s of Ninten’s irises, “how do the humans show their bonds?” Perhaps the question is a little out of the blue, but Ninten’s face flushes a rather dull pink.  
  
“T-Their _bonds_ ?” He repeats, and Ness mentally slaps himself. Of course, he won’t know what that is, and after a moment of trying to re-word it, Ninten tugs him a little closer and wraps his arms around his waist. Ness sits there in some shock as Ninten squeezes him softly, and after a moment, Ness clumsily wraps his arms over Ninten’s neck. “We do this. No wings or nothin’.” He says, rather plainly. “It’s a li’l like when you put yer wing o’er each other, it’s comfertin’ an’, _Gosh_ I ain’t ‘ad one o’these in ferever.”  
  
Ninten relaxes against him, and Ness finds it in him to keep holding him like that. They shuffle their positions a little so that it’s infinitely more comfortable, and he thinks back to his mother. She would bundle him close and wrap her wings around him and his sister, they’d curl up together and simply spend those moments in a comforting embrace. This was similar in a way, but instead of wings it was their arms, and because Ninten had grown up in human society, Ness supposes that the other had never truly learned how to fly.  
  
Ness parts from the hug before he tugs Ninten over to where Claus and Lucas were, curled up against each other, and he seats the boy down. Awkwardly, he pulls him into his arms once more and slowly- carefully- wraps his wings around him, too. Ninten is careful to not rest on the jagged areas of his exterior, and Claus’ wing drapes over Ness. They rest there, cocooned and safe from the world, if only just for that moment. They’d have to leave soon, they’d have to make a plan and get out of there. For the moment, that could wait.  
  
The world could wait.


	6. Haemoglobin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blood is shed, bonds are repaired.
> 
> Warnings:  
> The excessive violence and gore is in this chapter, Ninten's accent is still a thing, and some light bullying of Ness.

Claus’ claw lands on Ninten’s neck, examining the shock collar he had so effectively fried. He could sense no more electricity pulsing through it, even when he pressed his palm against it and his other to the ground- there was nothing, it was dead. He heaves a sigh of relief before adjusting Ninten’s position, examining his back and thanking whatever higher powers had stopped the boy from getting too many injuries. He was afraid that his roughhousing earlier may have broken a frail bone in Ninten’s wings, and he’s glad that isn’t the case.  
  
He doesn’t know how long he has to plan his escape out of his cage, but with Ninten out for the count and the door to his temporary abode open, escape is as good as his own. Something tugs at his heartstrings when he hears the gentle whimpers of the boy laid on the floor, a rush of guilt flowing through him when he realises that perhaps there could’ve been another way. At least this method had some kind of back-up plan to it, if they got caught and Ninten had to explain the broken collar, he could say they got into a fight.  
  
Still, the boy’s eyes flutter open, and upon seeing him, Ninten immediately scrambles backwards, eyes wide and wary despite the winces of pain-- the guilt seeps further inside of him as he slowly raises his hands in surrender. Claus isn’t sure what to say. He had anticipated the fear, he had even predicted _anger_ , but the stunned silence of the usually chipper boy had his heart feeling like it was trapped in a vice.

“I’m sorry.” It’s the only thing that Claus can bring himself to say, his voice is low and calm and a brief flicker of anger fires up in Ninten’s eyes. The dragon was too easy to read, his emotions crossed his face long before they reached his mouth, and before he can retort, Claus is already speaking again. “You’re free now.”  


The anger disappears in favour of confusion, and Ninten looks at him like he doesn’t believe him. Claus doesn’t blame him for it, the other had probably spent years upon this ship, and for a moment doubt spreads into his mind- what if the dragon didn’t _want_ freedom, what if he was happy here and he’d projected his own selfish desires onto him--

“What d’ya mean?” Comes the soft reply of the stunned boy, and Claus isn’t sure Ninten’s voice could get any more broken. “Y’... Ya attacked me an’, an’ then wha’?” The energy in his voice comes back little by little. “Magically disabled th’ collar? As though it’d really be tha’ easy?” The disbelief is tangible, and Ninten is practically speaking through his teeth. “An’ jus’ ‘cause yer sayin’ sorry y’expect me ta believe it?”

Claus supposes he has a point. He doesn’t really want to argue with the other, so he stands and walks towards the door of his cage. Ninten scrambles after him, grabbing him by the wrist and giving him an awfully hard look for somebody so short and frail. Claus’ eyes soften and he pulls Ninten along with him, the other protesting for him to get back into his cage, but Claus doesn’t care. If this is what it took for Ninten to realise that he was free, then so be it.

“Tell me where Lucas is, Ninten.” He turns to face the flushed boy, red-faced with anger and he splutters in protest. “Just take me to him, take me to wherever they’re keeping him.” Claus’ voice is far too even for his liking, and hurt flashes across Ninten’s face, if only for a moment.

“ _Fine._ ” Ninten practically spits it at him, the venom on his tongue ripping through him as his face turns stony and he marches on ahead. “But don’ come cryin ta me when ‘e tears yer wings off an’ collars y’up as well, a’right?” Claus can’t quite describe the emotion practically radiating off the boy, but he follows him anyway.

After a minute of wandering through strange hallways, they end up facing a room with two doors. One of them had a rather big ‘KEEP OUT’ sign plastered to the front, and the other had ‘testing in progress’ labelled on a small sign around a peg nailed into it. Claus looks at Ninten as he knocks exactly three times before opening the door.

He hears the familiar sound of gentle whimpering coming from the other side, and before he can run in, anger bursting through him, Ninten shoots him a look. The stare is much akin to the one he’d been given while Ninten was healing his arm-- pure, unadulterated, _ice_ . It sends a fierce chill down his spine, his stomach clenches and his anger dissipates into nothing. He has no idea how Ninten could freeze him up like that, one minute he feels confident enough to grab the boy by the throat and the next he’s obeying him like a lost puppy.

Claus hates it.

He sorely wants to help his brother, he’s right there, right in front of him, and he notes with some horror that the man who had taken his arm is there too. He refrains from growling as Ninten takes a step towards the man, and just as the man is about to say something his eyes lock with Claus’.

Claus is thankful his brother is blindfolded, for the anger that’s twisting his face caused the man to visibly shudder. The two masked men pause in their work, and Ninten grabs his wrist to stop him doing anything too hasty-- of course, Ninten still thinks the collar works. Ninten doesn’t believe he’s free.

Ninten is saving his ass again, and Claus realises he’ll have to make less of a habit out of that. The other’s voice is even when he speaks again.

“He decided ter follow me, sir. Caught ‘im sneakin’ so I lead ‘im ‘ere. Maybe ‘e’ll learn ‘is lesson if--” The man raises his hand and pulls out the switch for Ninten’s collar, he notices the other’s shoulders square, fear causing his wings to tuck further behind him and his breath shakes in the sudden silence of the room.

“Now now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” the man starts, “I’ll decide where this lizard deserves to be punished, and as for _you_ .” An evil grin moves his lips upwards, baring his teeth as his finger hovers over the button, and for a brief moment, he prays to every God available that the collar is genuinely broken. Ninten swallows audibly, and for a moment the only noises in the room are the gentle pants of his exhausted brother, and the palpable nervousness from the boy beside him.

 _Click_ .

The tension inflates as they hear the sound, Ninten’s breath instinctively halting as he prepares for the sensations of electricity coursing through him, and too many beats pass by, he can hear his heart thudding in his chest. Another soft click sounds out and as Ninten’s eyes open once more, a smile playing on conjoined lips, Fassad’s twisted grin fades all too suddenly, and Ninten breathes. The inhalation is sharp and the light that springs into his eyes causes Claus’ heart to stutter wildly. There’s silence, and finally, Ninten speaks.

“I’m **free** .”

The weight lifts and Ninten stands, prouder than ever, his voice is loud and there’s a sense of joy in it. A sense of unparalleled rhythm as his voice carries to the corners of the confined room. Lucas twists in his seat and Claus growls-- Ninten looks Fassad directly in the eyes, defiance written all over his face, and before Claus can rush forward to bring harm to any of the residents, Ninten speaks once more.

“You wanted me to sing, Fassad?” The name is held in the same contempt of a murderer, and in a way, Claus supposes this Fassad fellow _is_ a murderer. “ _Then I will_ **_sing_ ** .”

So he does.

Ninten’s voice is powerful, far beyond what he had expected it to be. Fassad is rendered to his knees, his hands over his ears as the boy’s voice bellows and vibrates around the walls. It seeps into his skin, the pain, the anger, the sadness, and ultimately all of Ninten’s frustrations bundled up into a pure feat of vocals. Claus sees blood dripping from Fassad’s ears as his screams are drowned out by the sheer power of Ninten’s voice- and all too suddenly, it stops.

The scraggled boy wheezes for air, collapsing to the floor himself as his lungs struggle to take in the air they need, and Claus kneels to his side. He wants to help Ninten breathe again, and he wants to help his brother confined to the chair- Lucas knows he’s here, he’s not an idiot, and he’ll have to thank Lucas for his never-ending patience.

“Claus-” Ninten gasps, looking at him with a fury to rival that of a God’s, “T-ake Lucas--” Claus shakes his head, glaring right back at him as he rubs his back. There’s no way in hell that he’s going to simply leave Ninten here, gasping for breath and vengeful.

“No. You take Lucas.” There’s a finality in his voice as he sees the squirming man. “I have some unfinished business here.” Before he can move, Ninten grabs his arm and grins at him, a mischievous spark in his eye as the masked men in the room back away from the pair.

“Yeah,” A beat. “Me too.”

Once Ninten’s breath finds itself in his lungs, he stands to regard the workers. There’s a calm air around him, like the eye of a storm, and as he walks closer to the men Claus can feel the room’s temperature dropping. Ninten wasn’t a mere healer, and Claus feels foolish for ever stepping over his boundaries in the first place. The boy is a force in his own right, and every step forces a breath out of him.

He can only imagine the terror the masked workers must feel.

Claus stands to help Lucas out of his binds, cursing when he realises they’re metallic locks, his own prosthetic being incapable of shattering the iron. Ninten murmurs something and one of the workers hurries over to undo the binds, and once the blindfold is removed from Lucas’ teary eyes.

His wings extend slightly in happiness, and Lucas’ mind attempts to reach his own-- a block hits between them and Lucas looks sheepish before he stands and rests his head against his shoulder, trilling raspily as Claus’ wings wrap around him- overjoyed to finally be freed from his restraints. The masked workers are clamped onto the chair by a gleeful Ninten, one arm for each strap, before his gaze floats over to Fassad.

The man is pitifully crawling away, blood leaking from his ears as he, disorientedly, makes his way towards the exit. Ninten’s foot stamps against the man’s ankle, and given the sickening _crack_ that sounds out, it’s safe to say that the joint has been officially broken. Fassad yelps out in pain and Lucas glares at nothing in particular, before shock settles into his features and he mouths a word.

Ness? A spike of panic runs through his chest as he realises Ness isn’t with them, Lucas’ gaze shifts to the wall blocking the rooms, and Claus figures that the other labelled door is where the boy is being kept.

“Ninten, where’s Ness?” Ninten looks over at him confusion on his face before it develops into a mild panic.

“Oh Lord, he’ll be in th’other room. Jus’ next door.” They silently agree for their revenge to be damned for the moment, and Ninten kicks Fassad onto his back and grabs the blonde. “I’mma need yer ‘elp fer this, Lucas.” The amber-eyed boy says before regarding Claus again. “Claus,” another beat, “make sure this bastard don’ leave th’ room, I’on care ‘ow ye do it.” The latter half of the statement is practically spat before him and his brother are leaving the room.

The silent command is clear, and Claus has plenty of thanks lined up for later. ‘Kill him if you have to’ was just on the tip of Ninten’s tongue, and a part of him wonders if those words were mirrored from a past experience. Still, his foot stands on the pathetic, whimpering man, preventing his movement as his twin and his newfound companion disappear into the other room.

“You can’t hear me.” Claus says, “I don’t even think you can read my lips.” He’s long-forgotten about the masked workers chained to the chair as he straddles the man’s stomach, a smirk twitching up on his mouth. “Yet here we are, tormented and tormentor, and I must give thanks to Ninten for the permission.” There was a cathartic layer to all of this as his claw digs into Fassad’s chest, blood pooling around the tips as a scream sounds out-- Fassad couldn’t hear himself, and Claus almost winces at the intensity.

So he rips open Fassad’s shirt, bundles it up, and shoves it into the man’s mouth, his eyes wide with fear and Claus’ stomach bubbling with glee. He takes Fassad’s arm in his mechanical one, cool metal touching his skin as he _squeezes_ \- delight evident in his laughter as he hears the crack of the bone giving under the pressure, and the muffled screams of the man beneath him.

Claus realises that by doing this he’s no better than his tormentor, the moral victory would never be his own, but why have a moral victory when he can have a physical one? Why rob Ninten of seeing the lifeless corpse of his once-was tormentor? He thinks back to the warmth Ninten had offered him, he thinks of the collar, the way this man so effortlessly pressed that button, and Claus thinks the world suits its newly-bathed red hues.

Electricity crackles on his left hand, and it clamps around Fassad’s throat, cutting him of his air as Claus grins down at him. The man is shaking and choking on the breath he no longer has, and Claus reaches for the button- assured it no longer works on Ninten- and pretends to press it.

Revenge had never tasted sweeter when the man’s body shakes and stutters, electricity pouring through his system, the smell of burning flesh and the terrified whimpers of the masked men behind him. The man falls limp under his hold, the familiar red and charred marks of electric burn around his throat, he releases the man- his broken breaths filling the room as Claus lets his claws dig once more into the flesh of the man’s chest.

He thinks to how angry Ninten had been, the happiness in his eyes, the way his voice had bellowed and beamed at the sight of this man’s suffering, and he allows it to fuel the work of his claws as he tears and tears and tears and rips his way into the man’s chest. Muscle splitting to make way for vengeful hands, claws bursting delicate organs and scooping viscera out from the cavity. Blood spills across the white floor, muffled screams and half-flails of broken limbs and---

“ _Claus!_ ” He stops. Red falling from his vision as Ninten’s hands grasp at his shoulders, worried and afraid as their eyes lock and Ninten stares at him. “E’s dead, Claus. Stop.” Ninten’s voice is shaking, and Claus doesn’t dare look at the massacre below him. His wings splay out slightly and Ninten draws him close, burying his face into his chest and shushing him quietly.

“It’s okay, Claus… it’s okay.”

 

\---

 

They’d spent the next few minutes traversing to Ninten’s room. The gore left behind them as Lucas carries a fainted Ness, he’s curious as to why he’s covered in blood, but chooses wisely to not question exactly why that is. Lucas is a lot stronger than Claus had ever given him credit for, and he supposes much of his strength had come back because of Ninten. He thinks of his hand being held by the scraggly boy, a soft squeeze is offered to him when Ninten sees him looking, and Claus squeezes back to let him know he’s okay.

Ninten takes a momentary detour to pick up the boxes of food that he’d placed in their cages earlier, and Claus stares at the ruined state of Lucas and Ness’ cage. His twin looks to him with a pained expression as he picks up the other small package, choosing to ignore the claw marks and the struggle in favour of getting somewhere safer, or at least anywhere but _here_ . The pair of dragons look to him, concern lacing their features, but otherwise carrying their respective loads away from the scene, and Claus attempts to convince himself that Lucas wasn’t holding back his tears at the memories.

Once they were in the room, Claus had taken to seating himself in the corner of the room, Ninten sits close-by, and Lucas curls himself up by the blanket with Ness resting in his lap. Adrenaline fades out of his system, leaving him in a mild state of shock, his brain reeling a mile a minute as he processes all of the stimuli of the last two hours. Ninten takes a moment to lick at the wounds on Lucas’ arms, thick saliva offering steady healing to the descaled areas of his arms, and Lucas offers him a soft ‘thanks’ and a little teary-eyed smile.

The scraggly boy sits back next to him, their hands linking together as Ninten offers him an anchor for his thoughts. The feeling of Fassad’s insides are fresh on his fingertips, and the more he sinks into the dread of what happened, the harder Ninten squeezes his hand. Claus attempts to clean off some of the blood now caked to his skin, if only to distract his mind, wincing at the awful taste of the copper against his tongue, but lacking the means to clean it off any other way.

Ninten glances at him, pained and tired.

“Escape won’ be easy.” Ninten suddenly pipes up, his voice weary and soft. “I don’ know ‘ow far away we are from land and we’ve been o’er th’ ocean for a couple o’ days.” Claus feels his heart sink at the news, and given Lucas’ expression, he feels exactly the same. “We’ll need t’eat and regain our strength t’do anythin’ properly but I’onno jus’ ‘ow long we ‘ave afore we’re…” Ninten trails off, and Claus’ stomach sinks further at the silent threat.

 _We’re stuck here, is what you’re saying?_ Lucas says, and Claus feels his heart swell at the sound of his brother in his mind, a part of him had felt so empty without the familiar voice. For a moment he feels hopeful. His brother smiles at him, all too aware of his relief as Ninten offers a shaky nod.

“We could be ‘ere for a while, yeah.”

 _Well, if we have the time to kill,_ the younger twin says, a little smile playing on his lips, _why don’t we share some stories to pass the time?_ He doesn’t know why, but he laughs. Lucas knows exactly what Ninten meant by ‘for a while’, and when Lucas looks at him with amusement shimmering in those turquoise irises, he’d said it with the exact intent of making him laugh.

To their surprise, Ninten lights up, a sudden realisation hitting him as he begins to almost rapid-fire talk. “I ain’t spoke about m’family fer a long time! I’ve ne’er been allowed ta, an’... an’ now I can.” A claw pokes at the collar and he flashes Claus a grateful look. “I’m sorry I e’er doubted y’, Claus. Y’really did fry th’damn thing.” Claus feels his stomach warm at the soft look that inevitably takes over Ninten’s face, and the feeling grips over his heart. All he can do is dumbly nod at the statement before Ninten begins re-telling his story.

He talks about his mother and his father and his sisters-- Minnie and Mimmie-- and how they got into all sorts of adventures and trouble. How they told him they’d found him one day and how he had felt lonely but he was never alone. He’d never trade them for the world and even on the day he was taken from them, he still loved them knowing that his parents fought for him. How he learned to play the ocarina from his neighbour and how he loved to show off his skills despite his asthma.

Claus watches as he talks in excessive excitement over his old life and how he misses the trees and the alcoves and his bed, how he misses the food and how his mother had scolded him for licking Minnie’s scraped knee, only to gasp when it healed over effortlessly. As he continues to talk, Claus finds himself staring at the animated boy, it was like a new life had been breathed into him the moment he’d discovered he couldn’t be punished any more.

The ginger found himself liking the sound of Ninten’s voice, but his babble was cut short when Ness stirs in Lucas’ tender hold. Needless to say, Lucas immediately bursts into overjoyed sobbing at Ness’ awakening, glad that he’s alright, and they catch him up on what’s happened- they miss out the part where Claus had essentially mauled Fassad, if only to spare him the details. Claus feels an anger burn inside of him when Lucas retells Ness what had happened to him, and a spark of exhausted anger flashes in Ness’ eyes. Lucas hushes him, placing the wrappers of their food back into the plain boxes, and silently thanks Ness for helping him.

Ninten shows signs of panic when he remembers the man is dead, exclaiming they needed to leave and they needed to leave now, but he’s inevitably distracted by Ness’ sudden suffering. His link had opened briefly at the recharge of his power, and Claus feels a sadness in his heart at the dimmed colours on Ness’ body.

 _Just how long have you been here, Ninten? Where did you learn how to lock--_ Claus hears Lucas start, Ness looks confused, and the answer makes Claus’ eyes widen. Five years. He’s never truthfully been around Dragon society before, he was raised by humans and the most interaction he’d been given was from watching others. He’d learned the skill off of a dragon he’d eventually be brought to kill. Claus offers a soft translation, conveniently leaving out the latter half of the question for Ness’ sake.

Ness and Ninten wrap their arms around each other, the violet boy too inquisitive and Ninten more than happy to share his learned culture, and Lucas is ecstatic to clamber over and climb under his wing. Claus has to admit that he’d missed the feeling of his brother there, and carefully tightens the wrap.

 _Claus?_ Lucas calls out to him, and Claus inclines his head. _Should I be worried about all the blood on you? Ninten peered inside of the room and told me not to come in…_ Ah, so Lucas didn’t know what happened. Thank the Gods that his little brother didn’t see that. He ruffles his brother’s hair, a weak smile on his lips and tells him to not worry about it. He’ll get into the details later, right now, they needed to form some kind of plan.

Ninten and Ness eventually part from their much-needed TLC, and Ness brings the pair of them over, cuddling the boy close and protectively wrapping his wings around Ninten. The amber-eyed boy looks far more comfortable now he knows it’s a symbol of affection, and leans into Ness to make it easier for the leather to drape around him. Claus wraps his spare wing around Ness, and Ness leans into him too. He laughs a little at the sudden neediness of affection that all of them had been swept into, but he supposes that it was required at this point. Ninten had been starved for 5 years and Claus had been lonely despite it barely being a couple of weeks, that being said, he doesn’t really know exactly how long it’s been.

“We would’ve had better luck escaping if we were closer to land, at this rate, we’d land in the ocean and drown.” Ninten says, solemnly, still tucked up against Ness’ chest.

“Me and Claus can fly,” Ness offers, his voice a little shaky as he speaks and they all look at him. “We could always glide to the nearest island and land there?” Ninten groans softly at the proposal, in theory it could work, and Claus can’t entirely fault Ness for trying, but there was one tiny problem.

“The issue with that is we don’t know how far away from land we are, and this territory is unfamiliar, there’s no way we’d be able to navigate over ocean for potential days without rest. We’d be carrying Lucas and Ninten, after all.”

Ness’ shoulders slump and he tugs Ninten closer into his chest, dejectedly staring at the floor as though he could simply teleport them back home if he glared at it hard enough. Claus begins to think on what they can do, he’d always been the planner out of all of them. The ambient noise from the room begins to dim out as the wheels in his head begin to turn.

Ninten had been a slave to a higher up, that higher up was Fassad presumably, and assuming how terrified those masked workers had been earlier, it was safe to say that Fassad was potentially one of the only higher-ups on the whole ship. So what’s to say they can’t just stay on board and maul anyone who tried to stop them?

His mind flicks back to how Ninten hadn’t actually harmed the workers, he prods at the other’s mind for a moment and Ninten shivers against Ness at the sudden intrusion.

 **What’s your relationship with the workers?** Lucas looks at him, curiously, and Ninten’s eyes widen in surprise before they avert to the ground, seemingly ashamed. His answer resounds clear in his mind-- he holds no resentment to the people who work on the ship, they never wanted to hurt him, they had to because of Fassad’s word. Well, that threw a lot of his plan out of the window. **Is there somebody higher up than Fassad?** Ninten gasps.

Ness’s wing shifts and Ninten’s hands have clenched against the floor, an awful scratching noise sounding out as his claws grind against the surface, grating against his ears and causing him to wince. He’ll take that as a ‘yes’. Ninten’s voice rings out a quiet ‘not on the ship’ in response, and Claus has to double-take the voice in his mind.

“So uh…” Ness calls out, his eyes darting between Claus and Ninten. “You two want to fill me in on what you’re sayin’ or are you just going to keep looking at each other all weird?” Claus clears his throat, a light pink dusting his cheeks as he’s not-so-subtly called out for keeping Ness out of the loop. Lucas laughs at him and Ninten lets out a sigh of relief.

“S-Sorry, Ness. I keep forgetting you uh…” Ness looks at him as if to challenge him to finish that sentence. So he doesn’t. “We were talking about the hierarchy of the ship, and I was thinking of steering it to safety so we didn’t have to fly.” The violet gaze of the other dims in thought, and Claus takes it as a sign of silent forgiveness.

“So the issues we have are: Not knowing where we’re going, and not knowing how far away from land we are, right?”

“Yep.”

“So why not just find out?” Ninten shoots him a look. Words cannot express just how dumbfounded Ninten is, and it honestly makes Claus laugh. Ness looks at Ninten right back, begging him to add something to the conversation other than just looking at him like he’s stupid.

“Well, Ness, fer starters.” Ninten goes to say something, and then they realise that Ness may just have a point. Without a shock collar to really punish him, and without anybody higher up on the ship to start with, it wouldn’t be too crazy of an idea. Ninten looks at Claus with a grin, and Claus grins right back at him. Lucas looks between them, entirely confused, and Ness seems to be joining him on that boat. “Ness, yer a _genius._ ” Ninten grabs him by the shoulders, beaming widely, and Ness murmurs a little ‘uh, thanks?’ before the scraggly boy stands.

 _Don’t leave so soon, Ninten._ Lucas’ voice cautions as Ninten reaches the door. Claus stands to pull Ninten back down, if only to stop him from throwing himself out of the room in haste to grab the information they needed. _You may know where to get the information, but that doesn’t mean you need to get it now._

“Well, it does. We don’ ‘ave much time all things considered.” Lucas looks at him, puzzled. They hadn’t told him what’s happened just yet, and Claus is still reluctant to offer an explanation. The red in his vision is far too fresh for him to be comfortable reciting the memory, and Lucas’ pitied gaze seems to understand. “I won’ be hasty or nothin’, I’ll be quick as a flash, ‘onest.” Claus is holding him to that, and Ness’ wings have tucked themselves a little too tightly behind his back.

Ness doesn’t like the idea. None of them do, but it was potentially their only ticket out of there. So Claus lets the other stand, his gaze following him as he approaches the door. Ninten pauses before his hand touches the handle of the door, and quietly, he looks over them. Claus feels small under his gaze, Lucas hides further under his wing, and Ness stands to regard him with concern.

“I’ll…” He starts, a smile playing on his joined lips, before he shakes his head and leaves the room without another word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hemoglobin is how you spell it in US English! British English is weird and feels the need to add an 'a' in there. (Anemia/Anaemia is another word that's weird about that).
> 
> Big thanks to Megastarstrike for helping me read through my work and correcting my terrible grammar habits.  
> We bully Ness by accident. When I wrote the gore my anxiety legitimately started to spike up, so Claus scared me, thanks Claus.  
> Ninten's still adorable, he accidentally became my favourite character in this, oops.


	7. Altitude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ninten finds some familiar faces on the ship, and they find a way to (hopefully) freedom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh wow, I don't have to put any warnings here for the chapter. Well aside from maybe mentions of a dead body, the smell of blood and Ninten's accent. 
> 
> Thanks to Megastarstrike and MinishMae for helping me proof-read my work <3 Ya boye is constantly in a state of tired so I sometimes don't catch things.
> 
> Enjoy the chapter /o/ <3

_ I’ll be careful _ is what he wanted to say before he’d left the room, but famous last words weren’t his thing. He didn’t want to suddenly jinx their deceptively good luck before they were even off the ship, and while he knows exactly where he needs to go, the bigger issue would be getting the help. As a slave to the higher up, he had been frequently regarded as the man’s  _ pet _ , and nothing made his mouth turn sour faster than when people referred to him as such. It did however, have its benefits. For starters: people generally listened to him, he was never mocked or disrespected, for they feared the late Fassad more than they feared him. It meant he could ask for pretty much anything, within reason, and they’d obey out of fear.   
  


Fassad was very much so a control-freak, from how he organised the ship’s men to their roles, and even down to the punishments. Ninten feels the ebbings of shame float back to the surface as he realises how stupid it was of him to suggest a punishment to the man, of  _ course _ that wouldn’t have ended well, but he’d panicked. He’d been so busy trying to clamber out of the situation, having been angry and frustrated at the ginger for attacking him and then having the audacity to simply walk out of his cage.    
  


The feeling of knowing he was free from the man had lightened his shoulders, and though he still kept his tongue still, he felt like he didn’t need to worry quite as much as he used to. The burst of confidence was welcomed, and as he approaches the door the confidence wanes into nervousness, and eventually settles on guilt. A part of him knows that Fassad was beyond saving, he was in too deep and far too gone to redeem, he had been corrupted by power and he supposes that even if they had given him a choice to beg, he simply would have resumed as normal once he’d recaptured them.   
  


They were mere hypotheticals, scenarios that would never play out as they didn’t give the man a chance. In another universe maybe Ninten simply would’ve deafened him and broken his limbs, in another Claus would have killed everyone in the room except his brother, and a shiver crawls down Ninten’s spine as he realises the very real possibility that Claus could have, at any point, killed him.    
  


Ninten’s breath halts in his throat at the thought, the dawning settling into his stomach like a rock and staying there until his thoughts grind to a halt. Claus could have killed him. He could have sliced his throat open in his cage, he could have ripped him limb from limb, he could have massacred him in the exact same way he had done Fassad. Claus could have had his blood on his hands and barely batted an eye over it, and the thought causes his blood to run cold.    
  


Claus hadn’t done that to him, though. Claus had spared his life on more than one occasion, he had backed down and never raised his hand without controlled purpose. The dragon was calculated, he’d been planning his liberation from practically the start, and Ninten had doubted Claus’ quick-turning mind. His blood warms up again and he can feel the sensation return to his skin as he finally inhales. Claus had saved him, in a way, so the least he can do is free him and his kin off this damn ship.   
  


He hesitates before he opens the door to a familiar room, his anxiety gripping at him again, but they’d understand right? The masked workers never really held anything against him, he could have slaughtered their families and they’d no doubt forgive him for it. Still, the nerves remain, and Ninten hated his gut for it. He opens the door in spite of his gut instinct not to, and as the smell of copper hits his nose, he has to cover his mouth and nose. The smell isn’t quite close to vile, but the smell of the body was enough to cause bile to rise to the back of his throat.   
  


The workers regard him with hesitation as he approaches them. “‘M sorry.” He says, the smell of blood residing within his nose and twisting his stomach. He frees them from their binds and they shoot him a grateful look. They rub the feeling back into their wrists as Ninten surveys the room- Fassad is still laying there, dead as ever, and a part of him is expecting the man to jump up and start electrocuting him again.    
  


“I thought you were going to kill us back there, Ten.” She says, her fingers pressing together in nerves and he can tell she’s trying not to look at the massacre barely five feet away from her. He offers her a crooked smile and helps them both to their feet before moving them out of the room, they all sigh in relief as Ninten closes the door, and she locks the room with a finality to it. “You were  _ terrifying _ .” Her voice shakes and the other masked worker places a hand on her shoulder.   
  


“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so angry. It was like a storm was about to hit the room, and…” His breath halts as he squeezes his companion’s shoulder in a weak attempt at comfort. “We have to get out of here, I know we can’t do much but we have access to safer areas of the ship.”    
  


Ninten breathes a sigh of relief before nodding and leading them to his room. “I ‘ave some friends we gots t’take with us, I ‘ope tha’s alright…” He looks to them and they nod, “Oh, y’might want t’take th’mask off, y’might scare ‘em. They don’no we’re friends, after all.” Curse his accent and making it difficult to speak, he can sense the mirth in their gentle laughter as they remove their helmets--   
  


Paula’s hair frizzes a little as her blonde hair cascades out from her helmet, and Jeff’s neat cut barely moves an inch. He does adjust his glasses as Paula softly sighs, delighted at the fact she can finally take off the stuffy helmet. Ninten holds back a laugh as she smooths the frizz out of her hair, obviously wanting to be presentable before she introduces herself properly. Ninten’s hand rests on the door as he takes a soft breath to steady himself.   
  


He opens the door slightly. “It’s only me.” He calls out into the room, it’s a little lie, it wasn’t  _ just _ him but he didn’t want them freaking out too badly before they even met each other. He takes a step into the room and smiles warmly. Ness’ shoulders relax and Claus and Lucas return his smile, they’re at ease knowing that he came back safely, and the thought causes his heart to stutter slightly. “Don’ freak out but I brough’ some friends, they’re ‘armless,” he waves the pair into the room. “This ‘ere is Paula and th’ther’s Jeff. Jeff, Paula, these folks’re Ness, Lucas, and Claus.” Ninten motions to them as he calls their name to help the pair understand whom is whom.

They step further into the room, a little sheepish but they wave at the bundle of dragons regardless. Claus’ wing instinctively curls around Lucas a little tighter and Ness is tense, they’re ready to protect themselves if they must, and though he understands they’re being cautious, it still hurts. So he closes the door and takes a step towards them a grin still playing on his features despite his pain.   
  


“Th’pair of ‘em befriended me back afore I was jus’ a…” Paula coughs softly to interrupt him and smiles.    
  


“We were also taken away from our homes,” she starts and Jeff nods quietly beside her, “they came out of practically nowhere and snatched us up. Out of us three, Ninten’s the lucky one.” His heart clenches at the implication, he knows what had happened to them both, and Claus is scanning her features like she was hiding something.    
  


“You two are hybrids too?” Ness chimes in, his bubbly nature perking back up again as he stands to immediately start circling them both. Jeff seems uneasy at the behaviour, but Paula welcomes it, circling him too. Lucas muffles a giggle as Ness’ wings extend slightly, and though Ninten’s not quite sure why he’s doing that, he figures it’s a good sign given how Paula starts laughing.    
  


“Yep! Most of the crew on board the ship are hybrids, they descale us for a while and then chop your wings off and make you serve under them like livestock, it’s awful.” She sighs and Ness’ wings tighten behind his back. “We’ve been trying to escape for years but Fatass had us by the throat at any given moment, in the air and on land.”    
  


“We knew that Ninten was a force to be reckoned with, however we severely underestimated just how big of a force he was.” Jeff says, and adjusts his glasses again. “I fear we may never get his voice out of our minds, and I doubt we’ll be getting that sight out either.” Lucas’ head tilts at the comment and Claus finally caves in.   
  


“I killed Fassad.” He says, rather simply. Lucas’s face doesn’t move an inch, there’s no telepathy either, the room is silent for a few moments before the blonde nods solemnly.   
  


_ I had a feeling that was the case. _ Oh right, Lucas couldn’t talk. Paula and Jeff nod at Lucas and Ness’ hand raises to his own chest to clench over his heart. He may not have understood what was being said via telepathy, but his empathy was strong, even after all of the trauma he had gone through. Ninten admired him for it.   
  


Jeff clears his throat. “At any rate, I presume we need to find a way off the ship and with relative haste.” They all look at him, expectantly. “Given our late superior’s orders to gather more of our companion’s scales, I estimate we will be arriving to our destination within a day.” There’s a collective sigh of relief.    
  


“That being said, it won’t be easy to sneak past the others when we do land. They’re bound to know he’s gone and as the last people to have been seen with him, we’ll probably be bussed  _ hard _ .” The relief turns into tension at Paula’s words, and there’s another few tense moments until Claus’ voice breaks the growing silence.   
  


“Is there any way off the ship before we land?”    
  


The silence resumes, though this time there’s more pensive thought between Paula and Jeff as they mentally scramble through all of the exits off the ship. Ninten’s seen a few emergency doors before, but he’s never had the chance to investigate them, and though everyone could open it, it wasn’t a good idea to open it while they were so high up in the air. It would no doubt suck them out and throw them into the ocean. Still, they all nod, technically there are still ways off the ship.   
  


“There’s emergency exits, these big doors with red handles we’re not supposed to open unless we crash or, well, it’s an emergency.” Paula explains, and Claus goes into thought for a few seconds longer.   
  


“We could use them to jump out before we even land--”   
  


“‘Ow will Paula ‘n’ Jeff lan’ safely though?”   
  


Claus closes his mouth again and Ninten’s eyebrows furrow together in obvious frustration. It seemed as though every half-decent plan they could think of would get shot down in some way or another. Ness and Lucas spare each other a sympathetic glance, and Ninten calls attention to them both after the three of them begin to feel the onset of a fucking headache.   
  


_ If we were to escape before we landed, wouldn’t it be possible for Paula and Jeff to meet us at a specific location once night falls? _ Paula looks at him in surprise, and Ness unsurprisingly squints at them all. Lucas looks at him and smiles apologetically, relaying the message again for him, and Ness lights up.   
  


“It’d be super easy to sneak out at night, nobody would recognise us if it’s dark enough.” Paula grins like she’d won the lottery, and Jeff nods in agreement. Ninten wonders why he didn’t just ask Lucas beforehand, he’s Claus’ twin, of  _ course _ he’d be a good problem solver. Ness shifts uncomfortably for a moment.   
  


“We’ll have to fly once we’re out, right?” His voice wavers for a moment and it sends a little chill up Ninten’s spine, he’d never heard Ness sound so vulnerable before. His heart sinks. “I know I said I could fly but… I-I’m not very  _ good _ at flying.” His voice trails off, and Ninten’s heart bobs in his stomach. “So I don’t  _ really _ know just how well I’ll be able to carry somebody, I’ve never tried. I was just… making wild suggestions earlier.”   
  


The room enters silence for potentially the fourth time that evening, and Claus’ face falls slightly. Nobody is angry at Ness for the suggestion, or even his lack of practice in the air, Ninten knows that everyone’s more nervous about being stuck on the ship. Ninten’s certain that he’d much rather risk a face full of dirt than be re-tortured by their next superior.    
  


“You’ll be fine, Ness.” Paula says, rather suddenly, and given the look on Ness’ face he hadn’t expected her to speak up either. “You’ll be over land and so long as your wings are outstretched they’ll catch the wind, if you can’t fly, simply float down.” She makes it sound so easy, it makes Ninten regret the loss of his leather. A part of him wants to be able to stretch out his own wings and feel the wind under them.   
  


It sounds pretty nice, and Ness’ wings flutter slightly at the explanation, extending outwards slightly as his expression lights up. He catches Lucas’ soft gaze at Ness, and Claus’ wings loosen their hold so Lucas’ can relax outwards. He looks to Claus, and Claus offers him a hidden smirk.   
  


**He’s mimicking Ness.** Ninten has no idea what that means and the confusion is evident on his face, evident enough that Claus has to hide a laugh behind his hand.  **I’ll explain later.** He’s holding him to that, because he’s more confused when Lucas’ cheeks turn pink. Ah, he’d overheard the conversation, oops.    
  


“Well ‘en.” Ninten finally says, a little embarrassed, “If we’re landin’ tomorrow we may as well get some sleep now.” He regards Paula and Jeff with a wide smile. “If y’two can figure a way off th’ship an’ a meetin’ spot, le’me know, aright?” They nod with certainty.    
  


“I’ll also find a proper altitude, I’ll be covering you all as you jump, Paula will distract the others and keep them away from the room.” Jeff assures, and after a quick moment of re-introductions and gentle farewells, the pair disappear back out of the door, their masks on their heads and smiles on their faces.

 

\---   
  


Ninten wakes up a little too warm, he can feel his face flush and as he tries to kick off his blanket, he notices the strange assortment of wings draped over him. Ness’ laid directly on his back with Claus’ stacked on top of his. Lucas had intelligently curled up under Claus’ other wing, and Ninten’s face flusters further when Ness’ wing tightens a little around him at his earlier movements. He won’t lie, he’s not used to this sort of cuddly behaviour from anybody, the most cuddly anybody got with him was his own mother, she’d scoop him up into her arms and hug him tight.    
  


Earlier they’d all agreed that a nap was a good idea, it would help regain a lot of their strength back, and due to the cold nature of the room, he guesses they’d got worried for his frail frame. He does get cold easily and a part of him reasons that maybe they’d done it out of habit. He’d walked past Ness and Lucas enough to know that they’d huddled when they slept, and he’d seen enough pairs to know that it was absolutely a dragon thing, and not just something that Lucas and Ness did.   
  


Still, to be under two sets of wings was going to boil him alive. So he shifts a little more in discomfort, groaning quietly when the pair of them end up cuddling closer to him, his face feels like it’s on fire, his body feels like it’s on fire. So he does the only thing he can think of, he calls out to Lucas, prodding at his mind hoping that he’s actually awake. Lucas, please, wake up.   
  


The blonde stirs quietly. The lack of life from all three of them caused his heart to thud harder in his chest, his lungs constrict slightly and he’s wriggling more and more in an attempt to scramble out from under the wings, he feels like he can’t really breathe, and he whimpers out involuntarily.   
  


This is it, this is how he dies, trapped in the confining heat of the pair of boys either side of him--   
  


Relief flows through his system all at once, soft violet locking with his eyes and the gentle wince of his emotions flooding through Ness’ empathy link. He can feel his own emotions evening out as Ness raises his wing, freeing him from the heat and the heaviness in his chest. He’s breathing a little too quick to genuinely be breathing, he’s aware he’s hyperventilating slightly, and Ness’ gentle hands are quick to grasp his own and squeeze him.   
  


“It’sh okay.” He slurs, having just woken up. “Breathe Ninten, breathe.” Ness exaggerates his own deep inhales, and Ninten finds himself closing his eyes and following suit. His mind clears up as the twins awaken from their deep slumber, the noise and panic of the room kicking them into alerted, straight-backed poses. Once they realise that nothing was really happening, they lock eyes with him, red-faced and breathing shakily.   
  


Claus’ eyes widen and his cheeks turn pink, Lucas crawls over in gentle concern. Ninten has to tell himself that they didn’t mean it, they were just trying to keep him warm, no harm was done and--   
  


“Oh, fuck, Ninten. Did we do that?” Claus’ voice splits through his inner monologue, “I’m so sorry, we were nesting up and you were shivering in your sleep so…” Guilt is laden on the ginger’s expression, his eyes casting downwards to the floor, and Ninten wants to tell him that it’s okay. So he smiles at Lucas who squeezes his brother’s shoulder and he perks up a little at noticing the upturning of his lips.    
  


“I-I know,”   
  


“I’m really sorry-”  
  
  
“I know, Claus,”  
  
  
“We really didn’t mean-”  
  


“Guys, please!” Ninten laughs, “I’m fine, I’m a’right, ain’t no bones broken or anythin’, ‘m jus’ a li’l shaken.” It seems to do the trick as Claus and Ness share a glance before nodding at him. Ness stops holding his hand and Ninten immediately misses the warmth of the other dragon, despite earlier feeling way too overwhelmed by the same warmth. What a hypocrite. His heart slowly begins to settle down, his breath evening out, and gradually the worried expressions around him shift into relief.   
  


He’s okay, for now at least. Lucas lets out a quiet yawn, stretching his wings out, and Ninten notes the beautiful patterns on them, the way they glimmer in the light of the room, the shimmering light blues and cyans, the prickles of whites and the way his scales hold their iridescence. They frame his turquoise eyes, soft and kind despite the cold colour scheme.    
  


Ness does the same, his rocky exterior crackling gently, the browns and reds mixing together, fiery and passionate. Little blemishes of purple litter his scales, framing his violet eyes, wide and excited. Ness’ scales aren’t as iridescent as Lucas’ are, but their strange colour combination was no doubt worth a good sum of DP.   
  


Claus, on the other hand, his dark blue wings had glorious streaks of purple branching through them, his scales were of a similar quality, electric blues and brilliant purples radiating energy and clinging bits of his hair to his face. The colours seem to meld perfectly with the bright metal of his right arm. His eyes are a unique, piercing green, like wide canopies and perfect grassland. His eyes made Ninten homesick, and he finds himself looking away before the three can quiz him on why he was staring at them so intently.   
  


His own scales are green, matted and dulled from the loss of his wings. He barely remembers the dark blues and reds that used to flow through them, the only thing that reminds him of them are the bones they’d be generous enough to keep. They figured that keeping the bones was enough to get other dragons to trust him, it meant he could splay them out for the money, and irrational anger bubbles inside of him at the thought.   
  


Ness shoots him a look of concern, and he quickly quenches the anger.    
  


“They shoul’ be back soon,” he lightly uses a dull claw to remove some of the skin over his mouth, earning a little wince from Claus, “‘opefully with th’plans an’ with any luck Jeff’ll ‘ave figured our path.” Paula was a clever girl, she’d no doubt have a ground plan ready and a location to ‘go missing’ from. Jeff had enough smarts about him to know they’d have a safe landing, and a little nudge from Lucas snaps him out of his thoughts.   
  


_ Who’s going to carry who? _   Ninten can’t fault the question.   
  


“Me an’ you’re th’lightest, I’on mind bein’ carried by Ness if y’and Claus wanna pair up.” Lucas’ shoulders relax at the knowledge he’ll be carried by his brother, and Claus nods at the suggestion, seemingly happy that he’ll be in charge of safeguarding his twin. Ninten feels like it’s exactly what the twins wanted to hear, and given the little sparkle in Ness’ eyes, the rocky boy is happy to carry him, too.   
  


He’ll have to mind the sharp edges of Ness’ body, but pain was no stranger to him anyway.  Man, when he says it like that it sounds almost masochistic of him. He grins at the trio before him, they’d all huddled around him and though it’s a little claustrophobic, he welcomes the company. It makes him miss how his family used to cuddle around him and a part of him realises that his sisters wouldn’t be able to hide under his wings any more.   
  


Ah, maybe he’d been doing dragon things without realising it after all.    
  


A set of rhythmic knocks sound out throughout the room before Paula and Jeff enter, their masks half- off as they shut over the door, a set of boxes between them and grins on their faces.    
  


“We told them that we were going to drop the food off today because you injured yourself.” Paula explains as she sets the boxes down, and he has to stifle a laugh as Ness slurps back the drool near-pooling out of his mouth. He’s quick to grab the box and start munching down on the cake, and Lucas and Claus follow suit once Ness is finished. “It was hard to get them out before the bell, but we managed.” As one of the only females on board, Paula had most of the crew wrapped around her fingers.    
  


She is a pretty girl with long lashes and a fiery temper, and it's generally wise to avoid making her angry. She never showed such a sign around Fassad in fear he’d collar her up too, but he can tell that the freedom had brought some of her true colours back out. Jeff cleans his glasses idly as they all eat.    
  


“I suppose you’re all eagerly awaiting the escape plan.” It’s not a question but they all nod in affirmation anyway. “Within the next two hours we’ll be approaching land. I’m aware it’s not a lot of time to adequately prepare, however, using route C around the ship will hide your presence as we await landing.” Jeff clears his throat.   
  


_ Route C? _ Lucas questions, and Jeff nods.    
  


“Ninten’s typical patrol route, as he is in charge of the cages and those kept within them. If anybody sees him pulling you along nobody will think twice about it. It leads around the cage area, towards the link room and loops around past the cafeteria and of course, to Ninten’s own room. Here.” Jeff lets the information to sink in for a moment, allowing the silence to linger so that if anyone is confused they can ask questions. When nobody speaks, he continues.   
  


“The timeframes are only approximate to allow for errors to be made, ideally there should be no errors, but planning for none is foolish.” Ninten’s inclined to agree. “That being said, in two hours at the sign of the bells, he will perform his patrol route minus the cafeteria, you will all follow him to the south exit. There’s an emergency door, the trip should only take twenty minutes but during those minutes we will be descending. You will feel disorientated as the ship begins its descent. Once you feel the ship evening out, open the door and jump.”    
  


He sees Lucas shiver softly at the explanation, Claus is lost in thought, and Ness is worrying his lip. It’s going to be a tight operation, and they have two hours to steel themselves for their jump. Ninten can’t help but feel nervous over it, this was their only chance to escape and if anything went wrong it could spell their re-capture.    
  


Ninten swallows thickly and decides with newfound fire that he won’t let anything happen to them.   
  


“Fly as far away from the ship as you can.” Paula adds after a tense moment, and he finds himself looking at her incredulously. “There’s a cluster of towns, Ninten you know Onett, and you know that south of that is twoson--”    
  


“Are y’suggestin’ wha’I think y’are?”    
  


“Precisely.”    
  


Ninten feels a lump form in his throat. He can’t say he isn’t happy for their meeting place, but he figures that it may be too easy to find him again if they met there. It feels like it’s set up to be a trap even though he knows Jeff and Paula wouldn’t stoop as low as that. It does nothing to settle his nerves though.   
  


“I don’t think they’ll let you get taken a second time, and this time you have backup.” Paula smiles at him, warm and reassuring. He finds his earlier thoughts dissipating into the recesses of his mind, and his shoulders relax. They wouldn’t let him get taken, and this time he had a better voice, this time he’s prepared. Without Fassad there’s no doubt they’d be lost, and his village was so weirdly hidden away that they’d never just stumble upon it.   
  


That’s if his family still lived in their old podunk. His stomach sinks as he realises they may have moved out since then, and the presence of a cold hand on his shoulder makes him steal at glance at Claus.    
  


**Don’t worry. We can do this.  
  
**

It was such a simple sentiment, a brief set of words echoing in his mind, and yet somehow it sent a burst of butterflies and equal amounts of warmth through his system, his heart clenches in his chest, and his breath stutters for a moment. He doesn’t quite know when these feelings had come around, but the little smile that Claus offers him is sending his stomach packing, and his cheeks have long-since reddened.   
  


“Thanks.” How lame.    
  


It’s not long before Jeff and Paula leave again, they have to keep up appearance on the ship so nobody realises anything’s going wrong. Paula’s going to guard route B which intersects a little with his own, and Jeff is going back to fixing up the ship as required. Jeff’s a smart enough kid, they’d captured him for his brains and have been using him to repair their ships and electronics. He promises to get his collar off once they’re on the surface.   
  


Ninten’s going to hold that to him. 

 

\---

 

Whoever said it would be easy to sneak out of a ship was sorely mistaken. Paula had done a reasonable job of keeping everyone away from his usual patrol route, and Jeff had been kind enough to lend him chain cuffs so he could look like he was genuinely taking them somewhere. The only problem with this is usually he wouldn’t be alone, and usually he’d have put them to sleep and be carrying them back one by one, singing softly as he did so.    
  


He can’t blame Jeff for not knowing, and the looks on his friends faces when he’d shown them the device had been beyond priceless, but that’s besides the point. He looks around a corner and feels relief in knowing that it’s empty, they’re not far from the exit point, and Jeff would be soon en route to help Paula keep people away. As a mechanic, people generally didn’t go in the way of where work was being done. Paula apparently was having trouble keeping people away despite her charms, the whereabouts of Fassad was starting to kick up a fuss, and Ninten knows they have to be gone before anyone catches them.   
  


Claus shoots him a guilty look. Ninten smiles right back at him, and feels relief when Claus seems to ease. They move forward, closing the gap between them and the door to freedom. He hears some gentle ruckus down the hallway, Paula’s muffled voice sounds out, and Ninten figures she’s making an excuse for people to not come down this way. Jeff is stationed halfway putting up signs for maintenance work, and Ninten feels relieved that his friends are doing their best.   
  


Jeff’s too smart for this world, and Paula’s too precious. Somebody bless them, he’s begging, please. So they wait for the gentle descent of the plane, the force pushing them upwards and causing Claus and Lucas to cling to either side of him. He wills a blush down and Ness looks at them all-- ah, his rocky exterior was weighty enough to keep him from feeling too much of the force. A flicker of panic rises in him as he realises that Ness might be a bad flier because he’s  _ heavy _ .   
  


Lucas breathy-laughs. Lucas heard that, didn’t he? He smiles at the blonde who nods at him, affirming his suspicions. He laments that all they can do is wait, and it’s killing him. The plane descends a little heavier, the voices die down, and Ninten relieves a breath. Right, it’s protocol before they land to tell everyone, and Paula had no doubt told them that she’d already told him. Good thinking Paula. The longer they’re left undiscovered the more at ease Ninten begins to feel, they were really going to escape today, they were going to be free.   
  


Ness smiles at him, catching the little excitement that had welled up in his chest, and Ninten can’t help but beam right back at him. A chime rings through the ship, an indication for everyone to be careful as they were landing, the ship begins to level out and they all look at each other-- it’s now or never.    
  


Ninten grasps the hatch, and with Ness’ hand tightly wrapped around his arm. He takes a deep breath, and opens the door. 


	8. Heartfelt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fabled escape and the much-needed reunion. Lucas and Ness find themselves closer than ever, and yes, Claus is going to have a field day over it.
> 
> No warnings aside from maybe a couple of cavities if you find the fluff too sweet.

‘What if we don’t make it?’ ‘What if it’s a trap?’ ‘Is there any way to get back to safety?’ ‘When we land…’ Lucas had grown up a weak dragon, his ice powers leaked from him freely ever since he had been subject to air, they had tried everything to replenish his health and to stop him from perishing at a young age. Claus would curl up around him and share his own energy, his father had gone to look for a cure, and their mother had died peacefully in her own sleep. Claus had blamed himself, their father had blamed himself, and Lucas heard all of the thoughts that plagued them.  
  


Because of his weakness, he couldn’t talk. They had wondered why he never cried when he emerged, they wondered why his words wouldn’t come out, so they had taught him telepathy. The ability to open a link in the minds of others, close them at will, and hold conversations via thought. Needless to say, his own is strong, and the troubled whispers of the minds around him have him worried.  
  


‘Is Lucas okay?’ He spares a glance at Ness to offer him a little smile, and it seems to quell the other’s concern. Still, this plan, if it worked, would be an impressive feat even for them. He’s at ease knowing that Claus will be the one to hold him on the way down, and a little guilty knowing that Claus has always protected him. One day he’ll have to return the favour to his brother for that, when their lives are more peaceful and the air around them doesn’t smell strange.   
  


_Claus_ _?_  
  


**Lucas  
**   


He flutters his wings slightly at his brother’s voice, no matter his nerves or his state of mind, Claus’ voice always provided him comfort. His brother’s voice made him happy, it was an anchor to him, and Claus is well aware of this fact.   
  


_ If you drop me I’m taking you with me. _ It isn’t what he wanted to say, he wanted to tell him that he loved him, that he hopes they made it safely, and that no matter what he’d stay by his side. Claus snickers halfway through an explanation of Ninten’s game plan and side-eyes him, the twinkle of mischief telling him to stop giving him ideas, and Lucas tries to hide his smile.  
  


Claus is a good brother.   
  


“Paula’ll be coverin’ fer us, so we can’t waste time.” Ninten finishes, his hands nervously playing with themselves and the trio nod in response. The hardest part of this mission would be the dive out of the ship, followed by not getting caught doing it, and worse, not being caught once they were free. Ninten had assured them that once they were in the forest they were essentially home free, he knew the ground like “‘th’back o’me ‘and” and Lucas trusted his judgement. Ninten had been nothing but hospitable to him, he had healed their wounds, soothed them when they were in pain, and though he had taken their scales he had never done it from malice.  
  


Ninten is a good kid, and Lucas stands by that. Still, he can’t prevent his growing anxiety when they sneak out of the room, Claus’ hand in his own as they make their way right down the hallway and then left until they reached a strange door, he’d half expected the journey to have taken longer, but is glad that it didn’t. The wait would be the most painful part of the process, and Ninten’s on high guard.  
  


He feels his heart rest in his throat once the ship begins its descent, and Ninten’s doing a damn good job of reassuring him that he’ll be okay. A stray thought catches his attention, Ninten’s eyebrows knitting together in concern. ‘Ness might be too heavy to fly properly’, and he can’t help but laugh-- well, he’s not wrong. He can’t help but feel a little bad for the wingless boy, but he knows Claus would never forgive himself or Ness if he swapped places and he got hurt.  
  


Claus is a very good brother, and Lucas is grateful to have him.  
  


The idle mind chatter is ample distraction for his nerves, the little plans Ninten was making in his head, invisible routes and little worries, the way Ness was counting in evens and then odds to help calm himself, Claus making several back-up plans. It made him feel safe, it made him feel like if anything did go wrong, it wouldn’t matter.   
  


The plane begins to even, and his nerves suddenly light up, his heart jumps into his throat, and Ninten and Ness grip onto each other. Claus holds him like if he lets go they might just die, and as the door opens he feels himself almost being swept away by the wind. An alarm blares and Ninten curses under his breath, his thoughts are erratic but Lucas catches ‘a warning an exit opened’, and then they jump.  
  


He feels the wind suck the air from his lungs before Claus opens his wings, and he notes the terror also filling Ninten’s mind as him and Ness barrel a little too quick for his liking to the ground, only for his wings to open up and Ninten to curse him for being so rough. It brings calm back to his heart, and Claus smiles at him knowingly. The wind jolts them upwards as it fills the leather of Claus’s wings, evening them out into a casual glide as the alarm above them bleeps itself into the background.  
  


Ness eases into a soft glide below him as they survey their surroundings, Ninten motioning to the beginnings of a particularly dense forest next to the tops of colourful objects he’d never seen before. He’s described them as ‘houses’, and though the confusion was unanimous in the Tazmily trio as to what a ‘house’ was, they ultimately trusted Ninten’s judgement as they begin their descent towards the forest. Claus’s wings pull in to speed up their descent, and Ness takes it as a challenge for a race. Ninten and Lucas share a mutual ‘Oh, fuck’, as the pair of dragons grin at each other and hurry towards the trees.  
  


Claus easily swoops gracefully under the canopy, landing with a gentle thud against the floor and tucking his wings behind his back. He’s breathing with some issues due to the level of strain of racing their rocky friend, he’s satisfied by his win and there’s a beat of worry as his racing partner hasn’t landed yet. Ness, as if perfectly on time with Claus’s worry, lands with something akin to a crash, his heavy wings scrape across the trees and cause the twins to flinch as he tumbles.  
  


Something must have been watching over them because as Ness and Ninten stand, they’re mercifully unscathed. The trees definitely took the brunt of the damage, and Claus reckons it’s because of Ness’s rocky exterior that he’d managed to protect the pair without a so much as a scratch. Ness doesn’t look particularly happy about losing to Lucas’ brother, but they exchange a friendly grin regardless.  
  


“A soft’r landin’ wudda been ‘ppreciated ‘ere, Ness…” Ninten eventually pipes up, and Lucas finds himself next to the wingless boy’s side, checking over him for any wounds and earning a soft laugh. Despite the rocky landing, pardon the phrasing, Ninten looked happier than ever. His eyes sparkled a little as they darted around the forest, birds frantically chirping, the wind rustling through the now-scratched up trees, and Ninten grins.   
  


‘Home.’ Lucas can’t stop the little smile from twitching up on his lips as Ninten’s thoughts progressively recognise more and more of the scenery around them. He stands with excitement and motions for the trio to follow him, Lucas’s eyes catch onto Claus’s fond gaze, and steals a glance at an apologetic looking Ness.  
  


He tries not to let his own thoughts wander too far as Ninten’s intrude into his mind again. ‘We’re free, we’re finally free, I’m finally going home. I can’t wait to see Mom, I wonder what she’ll say, will she even recognise me?’ Lucas never really knew his mother, she was always sickly, but if there was one thing a mother could do, it was recognise her own children.   
  


**If Ninten’s the only dragon in his family, I’m pretty sure she’ll recognise him.** Claus offers, and Lucas has to stifle a laugh. Of course, Ninten hasn’t seen them in years, and as they progress through the brush, their wings awkwardly catching on low branches, Ninten’s excited trilling becomes more and more apparent.  
  


Lucas looks at Claus again, who promptly swallows whatever noise was about to bubble up in his throat. He has to silence the little voice piping up in his mind that Claus almost mimicked Ninten, and as his wings flutter curiously, he notes that Ness’s do the same. His heart leaps into his throat, and he swallows it back down. A surefire way of knowing who a dragon was interested in was to observe their behaviour around their peers, and if Lucas had learned anything from their elders, it was that mimicking was an important part of dragon society.  
  


It’s a clear-cut demonstration of a want to fulfil a bond. It didn’t necessarily have to be a romantic one, Claus and him had mimicked each other since they were children, they behaved in a similar way that Ness and Tracy had. Family members behaved like one another, it was just how things worked.  
  


**But mimicking somebody outside of your famil** **\--**  
  


__ Shut up, Claus .   
  


“We’re almos’ there!” Lucas doesn’t think he’s ever seen Ninten’s smile so bright, and the little hitch in Claus’ breathing certainly doesn’t go unnoticed. As they clear their way between the trees, a field with a small building comes into view. It’s a little run-down but that doesn’t stop Ninten from running full-speed towards it, and Lucas allows his brother and Ness to sprint after him.  
  


There’s no way he’s got enough energy in him to follow in suit, even though he’d been carried all the way down here and the walk wasn’t exactly draining, he still needed to keep his energy up. After living so many years leaking out all of his energy, he’s still a sickly dragon, and the fact that Claus skids on the grass and twists around to watch him walk over causes him to laugh.  
  


So he finally decided to remember that he’s not as physically fit, huh?   
  


**Sorry, you’re not as cold as you normally are. It slipped my mind.** It’s easily done, though it doesn’t stop him from socking Claus in the arm in a roundabout way of forgiving him. Claus smiles at him as they begin to walk towards the house where Ninten and Ness were staring expectantly at the, what Lucas can only presume to be, entrance.   
  


Ninten raises his hand and taps on the door. The knock resounds out, there’s a moment of silence, noise from within the structure, and the door gradually opens.  
  


A kindly lady appears before them, half-answering to two bickering girls inside and half excusing herself before she double takes, triple takes, her eyes widen, and Ninten is grasped into the tightest hug Lucas has ever witnessed. Granted the only other hug he had reference to was the one Ninten had shared with Ness on the ship, but the way Ness perks up through his empathy link brings a smile to his face.  
  


Ninten’s wings flare outwards, flapping softly despite the lack of leather between them, a loud half-purr half-trill bubbling from his throat, joyous giggles and tight squeezes. Claus shifts awkwardly in place, and Lucas can’t stop feeling like he’s intruding on a private moment.   
  


“Oh Ninten, m’dear sweet Ninten, how long ‘as it been?” Her voice is trembling as she talks, removing herself from the tight hug to squish lightly at his cheeks. “Oh and your mouth is all healed over, what did ah tell y’about doin’ that?” Her fingers lightly pick at the skin and Ninten starts laughing, there are tears prickling in his eyes, but he wipes them away with the back of his hand.  
  


“I-ah mishhed yu…”   
  


Ninten’s pulled into a tight hug again as she murmurs that she missed him too.   
  


“Oh, and who are your friends, Ninten? You must tell me ‘ow you got back ‘ome.” So Ninten goes through the usual bout of introducing them. He starts, rather nervously, with Ness and motions through Lucas and eventually Claus. His eyes averting as he mentions the ginger and a soft flush appearing on his face as his mother squishes his cheeks again.  
  


“Well don’ jus’ stand out there, come on in. Though you’ll ‘ave to excuse th’mess, the girls ‘ave been playing.”   
  


The next few hours went by in a flash, meeting his sisters-- Minnie and Mimmie-- listening to Ninten’s grand retelling of their story and their escape, flustering once more when his sisters tease him over going red-faced when Claus is mentioned, and marvelling in amazement when Lucas joins in via telepathy. They’d gotten to the home in the mid afternoon, the sun resting lazily in the sky, and before long the sun was beginning to set over the horizon, lights were turned on, and Ninten’s happily flopped over in his old spot as his sisters play over the top of him.  
  


Ness grabs his attention and motions for him to follow.  
  


“It’s strange.” Ness says as they step outside and away from the manic that is Ninten’s home, the smell of dinner in the air. Though they’d initially rejected staying, Ninten’s mother had been insistent on making them stay at least one night to gather their strength before heading home proper. “I’ve always been told that humans were cruel and ruthless, and though Fassad had made that much apparent… These humans are really nice.”  
  


Lucas shuffles closer to the homesick boy, wrapping a tentative wing around him and tugging him a little closer.   
  


“I could feel Ninten’s excitement the whole way here, too.”  
  


_ His excitement was practically palpable, his thoughts were going nuts over his mother, too. I’m glad that he’s found home again.  _ Ness’s shoulders relax, and he smiles toothily as if relieved that he understands.   
  


“I was worried that maybe we’d never get off that ship, that we’d be stripped like Ninten and…” He tightens the wing around the other, feeling grateful for his brother’s quick thinking and Ninten’s courage. He feels a little bit useless over the fact, a mere bystander in their story, watching them go on to do great things. Lucas hates the fact that he’s constantly in need of being rescued.  
  


He wants to rescue somebody else for once. He wants to feel the rush of adrenaline and fight tooth and nail for somebody he loves, he wants to be the one that everyone smiles at when they’re eventually freed. It’s a mere fantasy, and Ness’ hand comes to rest atop his own, a little smile playing on his features as though he had read his mind.  
  


“That’s a lot of turbulence.” Ness says after a moment, squeezing his hand, and Lucas realises that Ness’s telepathy might not be the greatest, but his empath abilities were nothing to sneeze at. He feels something warm bubbling in his chest as Ness cuddles up under his wing, leaning in a little closer. “You think a lot,” Lucas shoots him a look, “I mean like, to yourself. Not projecting it to talk to us. You have a lot of private conversations in there, a lot of worry that builds up and…”  
  


There’s a soft pause as Ness’s hand rests against his cheek, turning his head to face him. He feels the patch of skin warm at Ness’ touch, though that may also be because Ness is inherently a warm dragon. He’s a fire-breathing, rocky-exterior boy with a heart of solid gold and the ability to sense every emotion fluttering around them at any given moment. He’s protective and kind, he’s emotionally supportive, selfless to a fault, and somewhere along the line he’d started mimicking his actions.  
  


Lucas wants to push the feelings down. They’re not home yet, and he’d hate it if Ness got hurt out of the inconsistent and wild emotions that happened to spring from their interactions. He doesn’t want Ness to know that he--  
  


“I’m an empath, Lucas.” His voice is so soft, his face is close and tempting. “I know. I’ve known for a while, even without the mimicking.”   
  


He feels his breath hitch in his throat, and he pulls away slightly. Removing his wing from around Ness as his hands clutch over his chest. Ness pulls away, too, and Lucas is silently thankful for the space. Ness had no idea how to control his empathy links in full, he couldn’t quite shut them off entirely, he could numb them but there was no way for him to close the link, at least not without external interference.   
  


Lucas has had enough practice with his telepathy to know how to shut it off, how to turn it on, where he can place thoughts, how to talk to one specific person in a group. So it’s natural for him to not want to be intrusive to his friend’s thoughts unless they may be in danger, he couldn’t be angry at Ninten because he knew his inner thoughts the whole time, he can’t be mad at Ness for intruding on his personal feelings because… he’d done the same.  
  


He’d been focused more on Claus lately and his budding romance with their dorky once-captor, but now that they’re inside and patiently playing with Ninten’s family, Lucas realises that maybe, for the moment, he should let go of worry. He’d wanted to be the one to help protect somebody else, he’d wanted to be the one to come out of his shell and be the hero, no longer a damsel.   
  


So maybe he can do that for Ness.   
  


Ness didn’t need saving, though. Ness would never need saving, he’s bulky, he has jagged edges and a steel stomach, the most Lucas could protect him from was maybe a common cold, and the thought makes him laugh. The rocky dragon looks at him and grins, sensing his amusement before carefully draping a heavy wing around him, and Lucas immediately feels way too hot.  
  


So the wing is pulled away a little, Ness’s mind scolding himself for forgetting that he’s an ice dragon, so heat would naturally make him feel a little weak. Just this once, however, Lucas leans a little more into the warmth. The thoughts swirling around Ness’s mind cease at that one action, radio silence vibrates between them before Lucas leans in a little, an invitation of sorts.  
  


Ness isn’t the shy type, or at the very least he’d never been introvert enough for Lucas to pin him as such. With a consistent boisterous nature and an energetic flare to him, the sudden tentativeness comes as a shock. Then again, it’s not every day one is presented with their crush suddenly returning their feelings, and after a quick moment of decisiveness, Lucas allows their cheeks to rest against each other.  
  


The soft tingle of their magic flares between them as they quietly nuzzle their cheeks together, a spark ignites in his chest and Ness emits a soft, pleased gasp at the feeling.   
  


‘Finally.’  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if there's any strange formatting errors, and I'd apologise for the wait but it's my own damn fault that I broke my 8 day rule. 
> 
> Still, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, it was a little tough to write because of the distinct lack of angst. Short chapter because it felt appropriate to end it on that note.
> 
> Dragon kisses are the most fun kisses! They rub their cheeks together and connect up their powers and essentially recharge through their faces and it's, apparently, a very pleasant feeling. They kiss this way because trying to smooch like a human when you're shifted is a little bit difficult (and Ninten's gonna find that out the hard way, oh man).
> 
> Fun Trivia fact: I almost made this a polyfic, and you can absolutely tell I still kind of want to do that. I may just end up writing an optional bonus chapter for it instead of incorporating that into the main fic, though. c;  
> Special thanks to MinishMae and megastarstrike for helping me beta the fic and generally giving me advice. I'm still not used to writing multichapter fics, so I appreciate all the help I can get <333
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	9. Heartbreak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claus wants love, and can very well have it, but rejects it.
> 
> Ninten is hurt, Lucas is frustrated, and Ness is in pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this is so late, once upon a time Mouse had a decent upload schedule and then her mood tanked into the ground, so she began to write another au fic and that slowly took over her life. I'll do my best to keep up with dragons, this fanbase needs more love.
> 
> Special thanks to MegaStarStrike for being my (possibly reluctant) beta reader and fixing my grammar errors like a true bro. 
> 
> Warnings!:  
> Ninten's accent is still present (and worse), mentions of heartbreak, mild (unintentional) empath abuse, real sad boy hours in this chapter. I'm sorry.
> 
> Enjoy.
> 
> sidenote: ao3 can you stop messing with the italics and bolding of things and then when I fix it gET RID OF ALL THE SPACES??? THAT'S?? really inconvenient and kind of awful. This makes a Mouse sad.

**I can’t believe of all the things you did today, you kissed him.  
**   


_Claus, please._  
  


**My baby brother has a boyfriend and you’re expecting me to just let that fly under the radar? Oh Hell no, we’re having that talk.  
**   


Lucas’s glare held the force of a blizzard, on the surface level it may have caused the room to feel a little chillier, but Claus knows his brother better than that. Lucas made an impulse decision and Claus doesn’t like that, because Lucas never makes impulse decisions. Lucas is just as calculated as he is, Lucas is--  
  


Hopelessly in love, and it’s unfamiliar and it scares him.  
  


_Don’t act like I’m the only one who’s in too deep, Claus._ His voice holds the soft ebbings of a growl, despite it only being in his head, it causes his wings to tighten further behind his back. Lucas mimics the action and Claus bares his teeth.  
  


**No, we’re not talking about me. I’m not the one who went ahead and--  
**   


_Don’t pretend like you’re not scared._ A pause in their connection, Lucas looks away. _You don’t want me to have this because we’re not home yet and I did it out of impulse, but you know better than anyone that I’ve been harboring these feelings for a long time._ There’s a little sigh, and Claus allows his wings to relax as Lucas looks at him dejectedly.  
  


_Focus on yourself for once. Do what makes you happy, Claus._ And it hurts when Lucas walks away from him to join the others downstairs, the light tapping of his feet against every step sends another little wave of heartache through him, and Claus softly brushes against Lucas’s mind.  
  


**I love you.  
**   


There’s a pause on the step, a little laugh resounds through his mind, and though his face his hot and his vision is blurry, he manages a smile as Lucas replies with a gentle _I know._ He doesn’t want to lose his baby brother like he lost his mother, and Lucas is far too sharp to miss such an apparent fact. Ness’s worried voice sounds out from downstairs when Lucas gets there, and he’s quick to dry his eyes when he hears the gentle padding of footsteps making their way up.  
  


“‘S awf’ly chilly up ‘ere.” Ninten’s voice is softer than usual, his wings are relaxed against his back as he makes his way over to take a seat next to him. Ninten’s no true empath like Ness is, but his intuition is so on point it’s a little bit scary. Claus already knows what kind of talk he’s in for, with Lucas and Ness officially together, he supposes Ninten’s clicked onto his emotions too.  
  


“Ness mentioned tha’ ‘e sensed some turb’lance up ‘ere, li’l prongs of anger and wanted me t’check on yer.” Claus can’t say that isn’t a smart move on Ness’s part, knowing him he would’ve threatened to claw out Ness’s throat if he so much as looked at Lucas funny. He doesn’t like fulfilling the ‘overprotective brother’ trope, but with Lucas being so weak for the majority of his life, he had inadvertently filled those boots.  
  


“I’m fine.” Is all he ends up saying, but Ninten gives him a soft look and jabs him in the arm.  
  


“Thassa load o’shit.” The sudden swear catches him off guard, Ninten had been so polite up to this point that seeing him so relaxed is... Well, it’s a nice change, but startling nonetheless. “Ion know y’like y’broth’r do, but I ain’t an idiot. I know when yer upset, Claus.” His mind flickers back to when he was caged up.  
  


It flickers back to the harsh glares Ninten had given him, and a part of him feels stupid for doubting the emotional intelligence of a dragon who essentially had to grow up knowing how to read others.  
  


“I un’erstan’ if it ain’t me y’wanna talk t’. I did some fucked up things…” Ninten’s gaze travels to his metallic arm, and Claus recalls never actually making note of the prosthetic to Lucas or Ness. They’d simply accepted it was a part of him now, and maybe they were just being polite about it. The man who’d inflicted it upon him was dead now anyway, his revenge had been gotten, and he feels the creeping vines of guilt worm their way into his chest.  
  


“Fassad deserved it.” Ninten says suddenly, bitterness seeping into his tone. “I know a guilty look when I sees it. My telepathy ain’t as good as Lucas’s, and I ain’t no true empath like Ness, but I know ‘ow people feel by their expression.” There’s a sheepish, but proud smile on Ninten’s face. “It’s all I got left.”  
  


Pangs of sympathy wrack through him, and he hates that he can’t do anything to truly comfort Ninten. He hadn’t known him for long enough to warrant too much touch, but maybe…  
  


Claus reaches his hand out to almost brush against the other’s wing bones, and stops himself. Ninten had been subjected to enough torment to last a lifetime and the last thing the poor dragon needs is for somebody to touch his wings without permission. Claus would’ve killed somebody if they’d done the same to him, and there’s a forlorn look in Ninten’s eyes as he spots his hand, hovering, before placing it back down in his lap.  
  


Ninten’s wing opens up, brushing against his arm.  
  


He idly traces over the scar tissue, stopping when Ninten flinches, and starting up again when the other nods at him to continue. He’s nervous, and even without a solid empath link, the tension and little flickers of relief in the air are practically palpable. A soft breeze brushes against his cheek, and the little crackles of electricity cause Ninten to hold back a little laugh-- “Tickles.”  
  


He finds himself smiling at the blatant trust that Ninten had placed on him, and it’s hard to believe that only two days ago, he’d slammed Ninten against a wall and fried that ugly collar on his neck. Claus has to push his feelings back down, he doesn’t want to fall in love like Lucas did, he doesn’t want these feelings of trust to be pitted against him.  
  


Claus doesn’t want Ninten to suffer any more than he has to, and while Lucas would have told him to take it head on and just embrace it. He can’t bring himself to. After this they’ll be going home, they’ll be returning overseas to their own families, and Ninten would be staying here with his own. It wouldn’t be fair to rip him from his family the moment he’d found them again, it wouldn’t be right for them to try and coax him to come to Tazmily.  
  


Ninten deserves the world, and Claus isn’t a part of it. So when Ninten looks at him with those hopeful, glittering amber eyes, Claus smiles at him and walks away.  
  


He’ll regret the action later, after they’ve eaten and after Ninten’s mother had fussed them all clean. Lucas bubbling happily in a cold bath, and Ness practically rolling around in the lava-temperature waters they’d ran for him soon after. Claus is more than happy to clean off all the dried blood he’d missed, and though Ninten doesn’t voice it, he can see the hurt on his face as he brushes past him for his own bath.  
  


“Okay what happened?” Ness’s voice makes him jump a little, but even as he glowers at the purple-eyed dragon, it does nothing to deter him. “After Ninten went upstairs there’s been nothing but tension and I am in pain.” He’s talking through his teeth, his hand clenched over his chest, and Claus had almost forgotten the extent at which Ness could channel other’s emotions. It’s not Ness’s business to hold their hurt like that, Ness shouldn’t be channeling _any_ of their feelings in the first place, and he wants to be angry that Ness is intruding like that.  
  


Well, until he remembers that Ness has literally no control over it just yet.  
  


“It’s none of your concer--”  
  


“It’s _all_ of my concern.” Claus finds his chest tightening at the assertion, of course Ness would try to butt his head into the affairs of his emotions. There was no doubt in his mind that Ness knew exactly how deep he was, how much he wanted to hold Ninten close to his chest and how badly he needed to reciprocate these oddly bubbling feelings. Now that they weren’t in any true danger any more, free off the ship and no longer being tormented, his emotions had twice folded.  
  


“We’re safe now, Claus. It’s okay, you don’t need to keep fighti-”  
  


“No. It’s not that.” Ness looks at him like he’s suddenly grown a second pair of wings, before his head tilts curiously. Claus isn’t exactly in the mood to spill his guts out to the empath, but the way Ness is inhaling with controlled, shaky breaths, tugs at his heart strings. So he sighs and grabs Ness by the arm to lead him somewhere more private, he senses Lucas and Ninten watching them leave, but they make no effort to follow.  
  


“You know I want to,” he starts, running a metallic hand through his hair, “I really want to. The idea of leaving him behind hurts me more than anything, and the thought of him being in danger makes me more scared to leave, but I know that if I go through with this and reciprocate I’ll have to leave him behind.” Claus heaves a sigh, feeling the weight on his chest faintly lift.  
  


Ness takes a moment to process what he’d said, his eyes glaze over before he wraps his wing over Claus’s shoulders and smiles at him warmly. There’s a fondness in his gaze as he nods solemnly.

 

“I didn’t want to confess to Lucas at first either.” He says, his hands fiddling with the bottom of a borrowed poncho. “I was scared that if I confessed I’d be too attached to let him go if… if something happened to him and I wasn’t there.” His shoulders are rigid and Claus feels his heart sink into his stomach. If anything happened to Lucas, they’d both feel responsible for it, they’d both recess into the same hole of depression, and somehow it makes Claus feel a little better. “I’m sorry for not consulting you first about it though, you seemed kinda mad when you found out.”  
  


Ness is sheepish again, his grin lazy and lopsided and it reminds him of Ninten. So of course he can’t help but forgive Ness for it, it’s not like he’s Flint, he’s not their father, so Ness shouldn’t have to ask for his blessing to date his brother. Granted, he’d still maul the other if he brought any harm to his little brother, but Ness knows that. He’s a big brother himself, after all.  
  


“I don’t think I’ll confess any time soon. The Gods know I want to, but…” He drops his gaze for a moment, searching for the right way to say it, but when Ness’s hand lightly places itself onto his shoulder, he knows he doesn’t need to. Ness already feels the pain, he knows how much it would hurt to be in a relationship with somebody so far away. With no wings, Ninten couldn’t just come by and visit, and even then they were so far across the sea it’d be impossible to fly it.  
  


“You’ll find a way.” Ness says, his voice quiet but firm, before he smiles one last time and walks back to join the others. It wasn’t a confidence boost, it was a promise.  
  


Claus _will_ find a way.  
  


His spirits lifted, he joins the others back inside.

 

\---

 

“I know o’way t’get you fine boys back t’your families.” Ninten’s mother had been kind enough to let them stay the night, and so far their morning had been a hectic battle of detangling themselves and softly playing with Ninten’s twin sisters (who had crowed and hollered their happiness over another set of twins being present). Apparently she knew of a method for them to get back home without needing to fly back over the ocean, and they honestly couldn’t be more relieved.  
  


“The only pro’lem with it is that you’ll ‘ave t’head back to th’docks…” She sighs, and Claus’s stomach fills with dread. They hadn’t heard back from Paula and Jeff just yet, and Ninten seems just as antsy about the idea as he is. Anybody from the ship would immediately recognise Ninten from a mile away, it was hard not to. A boy with no wing leather wasn’t exactly the most camouflaged, and his greens and purples, no matter how dull, was an odd colour scheme.  
  


“But, I do know o’some folk who’ll be more than happy t’help.” She finishes, smiling at the bundle of dragons before her, and Claus feels his heart warm with the fondness of her gaze. She pulls them all into a hug, and as he watches Ninten laugh over Ness’s gleeful chirps, Lucas catches his mind.  
  


_You’re upset._ No shit, Lucas, of course he’s upset, he has to leave Ninten behind and he can’t exactly confess to him. It was going to be a long trip home, and he’d likely never see the healer again. Lucas shies away from him, and he feels their connection wane. His brother is unsure of something, and Claus nudges the connection again in an attempt to get Lucas to speak his mind.  
  


_Arguably, you’re the smarter twin. Your problem solving skills fly higher than my own, so I know you’ll find a way around it. I just wish you didn’t have to depart from him. There’s a sadness in your eyes and it’s killing me.  
_

Claus inhales softly.  
  


**I’m sorry, Lucas. I’m suddenly unsure if I can problem solve my way out of this. I can’t force Ninten away from his home to ours, it would be selfish, and Ness can’t exactly care for you.  
**   


A pause.

  
_You say that like I can’t take care of myself now._ Claus smiles, and Lucas raises an amused eyebrow at him.  
  


**We don’t know the extent of Ninten’s lock on your powers, and Ness is--  
**   


_Stop worrying!_ Claus jumps at the loudness of Lucas’s voice, and even Ness tilts his head at him. His brother had always been softer spoken, at least within the confines of his own mind, and there was never any real need for him to yell seeing as how he spoke to people directly. _Besides, have you even spoken to Ninten about it?  
_

He shuffles, a little awkwardly, and he can feel Lucas sighing at him. Before he can invade his brain to chastise him for it, he’s already dragging Ninten away.  
  


“Wai-wai--” Ninten says, tugging on him and looking positively pissed off. “Y’rejec’ m’an’ then ign’re m’fer th’ day an’ now y’spectin’ m’t’jus’--”  
  


“Ninten, I can normally understand you, but your anger is making you unintelligible.” Claus says, quickly, before explaining his intentions. “Look, I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t make my actions any less douchey, Lucas has already scolded me for as much and…” He rubs the back of his neck, shame creeping up his spine. “I’ll be honest with you. I want to reciprocate your feelings. You’re not an idiot, you know exactly how I’m feeling just by looking at me.”  
  


Ninten doesn’t quite relax, but his anger had subsided substantially. He sighs, and Claus can hear the crackling of the tenseness in Ninten’s throat.  
  


“There’s a ‘but’, in’ther’?” Ninten looks at him, and Claus’s heart clenches. Even when Ninten was a slave, he never had a sad look about him. He always had an optimism on him, and the sad look doesn’t suit him. He can see the beginnings of tears forming in Ninten’s eyes, and Claus tentatively puts a hand close to Ninten’s face.  
  


“It would be unfair to take you from your home. You’ve only just got here, you’re so happy with your family, and even though Lucas could look after himself, I’d be worried sick about him if I stayed here.” Claus doesn’t want his voice to waver like it is, he doesn’t want Ninten to look at him with those shimmering amber eyes, he doesn’t want it to end like this.  
  


Ninten doesn’t reply, not immediately anyway. He inhales, but it sounds laboured, and Claus is begging him to say anything to him. The silence hurts.  
  


“I guess thassit, huh?” Ninten’s voice is quiet and broken, his head is tilted away from Claus’s hand, so he rests it back at his side. He can feel his heart tearing apart with every word they share, and he’s almost expecting Ness to burst between them and tell them to shut up and make up already.  
  


Claus shakes his head.  
  


“No, that’s… that’s not it.” Ninten looks at him, and Claus swallows thickly. He’s been babying his brother for so long, he never really had the time for his own feelings, so it makes sense that he’s not good at it. Romantic feelings aren’t his forte, he figured he’d always be beside his brother until--  
  


“I want it to happen, but I know that the distance would kill me. Knowing I couldn’t see you again makes my heart clench, and I know it’s better to love and lose than never love at all, but I don’t want to love if it hurts this much.” He clenches his hand over his chest, the pain setting in and resting in his lungs, it’s hard to breathe.  
  


Then Ninten hugs him. His arms squeeze around Claus’s chest, and for a moment he’s confused, his sadness forgotten as Ninten sniffles into his chest. He recalls Ninten doing this with Ness, but not quite as tight as this. So he wraps his wings over Ninten and rests them over the other’s bonier ones.  
  


“If I stay ‘ere they’ll ju’s capture m’again…” Ninten eventually says, though his voice is breaking up. “Mom’s t’old t’care fer m’an’ m’sisters can’t fend fer me either. I’m powerless alone, and they know tha’...” Ninten parts from him, his eyes puffy from the tears.  
  


There’s silence between them again, and eventually they decide to sit down together in the morning sun, there’s sparse clouds in the sky today. He eventually feels the brush of Ninten’s wing against him, and Claus reciprocates the movement. His heart is telling him to go for it, to let himself love, to fill the bond that’s being offered to him.  
  


But they’re not safe yet. They still had a long journey ahead of them, and until he was home and within his own nest, he can’t let himself give in. He notes that Ninten is smiling at him, it’s not as bright as it used to be, there’s some pain behind it, but Claus appreciates it nonetheless.  
  


“Mom tol’ me t’go with you las’night.” Ninten says, “says that I deserve t’know my society, she thinks I’m missin’ out on m’culture.” He’s rubbing the tears away from his eyes. “I tol’her I jus’ wanted t’be home, and she tol’me not t’be daft.” Ninten laughs, though there’s no humour in it. The tension between them had faded away into a mutual sadness. “I ‘ave no choice in th’matter.”  
  


Ninten swallows and picks at the skin binding his lips, his snaggletooth poking through, and Claus wonders how these feelings had cropped up. Ninten’s gentle disposition had tipped him over, optimism despite his circumstances, and if Claus had to pinpoint a moment he may have fell in love…  
  


His eyes close over as he remembers the manic glee in Ninten’s voice, the smile twisting his features, and the room crackling with energy.  
  


**_I’m free.  
_**   


Something ignites inside of him, and he grabs Ninten’s hand in his own. Claus turns to face him and as his sadness turns into determination, he decides to make a promise to the other. If Ninten would have to voyage home with them anyway, if Ninten’s mother was truly making him come with them, and if he were to come to Tazmily, then this is the least Claus can do for him.  
  


“Ninten, I love you. I don’t know when it happened, I don’t know why it happened, I want to strengthen that bond with you, but I want to do it knowing that we’re going to spend the rest of our waking lives by each other’s side.” By the Gods does he feel cheesy right now, but he can’t stop once he’d started talking. “So I want to propose a deal with you…”  
  


“Y’ll love me when y’get ‘ome?” Ninten laughs under his breath, and Claus also decides that a smirk definitely suits the playful dragon’s face. “As much as I wanna tell y’t’ fuck off for makin’ m’wait f’y’...” Ninten shuffles a little closer, squeezing his hand. “I waited five years fer mfreedom. I can wait ‘nother month fer love.”  
  


It takes every ounce of his being not to kiss Ninten on the spot. So he pulls Ninten into a tight hug, the kind that Ninten had pulled him into earlier. He’s blessed in the knowledge that the boy he loves is so patient, and as Ninten sighs softly into his clavicle, he feels himself being pulled deeper into an orbit he can’t enter just yet.  
  


Not yet, but soon.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are appreciated but Kudos works too 'w'b


End file.
